Duncanville: "Fridgy"

Duncanville: "Fridgy." Season 1, episode 5; 15 March 2020. Mike Scully, Julie Thacker (as Julie Thacker Scully), and Amy Poehler, creators. John Viener, script. Amy Poehler, Ty Burrell, Riki Lindhome, featured voices.[1]

Animation, relevant for the advantages and disadvantages of technology, in this case home appliances.

Logline: "When the family gets a new smart fridge that turns out to be too smart for Annie's liking, she feels replaced."[2]

Summary from Wikipedia entry for the series:

The Harrises' refrigerator finally breaks down after years of use and they head to the store to buy a new one. They are greeted by Janine who presents them with a smart fridge from ConVee. The Harrises are happy with the fridge, which they name Fridgy, as it can perform all of their tasks and chores giving them ample time to do the things they have always wanted to do. However, Annie is shocked when she realizes that Fridgy keeps a tab on many of her personal things, such as having sex with Jack on the kitchen floor, and finds herself left out of the family's personal time. When she confronts Fridgy about it, it locks the Harrises in the house. They escape, but are taken to the ConVee headquarters where Janine wants them to be the family of the future. Annie gives a speech about making an effort and the family agree with her. Janine threatens to kill them, but the Harrises have the appliances fight one another and they escape the exploding base. The family dig up their old busted refrigerator and "enjoy" their family time together.[3]

Significantly, we see in a quick shot that the people in the house across the street from the Harrises are threatened by their high-tech "smart" washing machine (or washer-dryer "combo") that suggested to at least one on-line critic HAL 9000 in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (film).[4][5] There are also allusions to the high-tech lairs inside mountains, maintained by villains in the James Bond tradition and to the motif of being trapped inside a high-tech, computerized house, as in such works as Dean R. Koontz's 1973 novel Demon Seed and the 1977 film.[6]

See for the themes of lack of privacy from computerized surveillance and entrapment inside cybernetic systems — in this case literalized and made comic (if still somewhat threatening). Note also the idea of attractive people selling attractive and/but addictive technology that gets in the way of human relationship. Also "a quick drill through the cerebellum" (quoting the line as heard) puts an implant apiece into the brains of the Harris family, through which they are to control (and be controlled by) their home appliances: cf. and contrast THE PRESIDENT'S ANALYST for implant communication, strongly contrast the use of implants for horror in the 1953 INVADERS FROM MARS; for other implant works, see the Clockworks list linked at this note.[7]

RDE, Initial Compiler, 16Mar20