Is There Any RoboCop TV Series Worth Watching / RoboCop 2014 SPEED-ART
Outside of the 4 RoboCop movies, the character is also featured in 4 TV series, all of which adds up to about 40 hours of material! And I watched every last one of them for my animated evolution of RoboCop on Tell It Animated. Now most people, even fans of RoboCop, will tell you that anything after the first or second movie isn't worth watching, but most of them never watched the TV series. So let’s go through each show and see what’s worth a watch!
1. Robocop: The Animated Series (1988)
Let’s start with the original Animated Series from 1988, Robocop: The Animated Series. It came out a year after the original film, which is a bit questionable since animated productions often have a long build-up period before release. It more or less ignores the events of the movie, although it does borrow some elements and characters. Anne Lewis returns but is turned into a more useless character and now has weird romantic feelings for RoboCop. The Old Man and Sgt. Reed also appear, and Clarence Boddicker - yeah, the guy who kills Murphy in the first film only to be killed himself - is also back for an episode where RoboCop has to hunt him down, but instead of killing him, he just arrests him. Also, interestingly there are only 12 episodes of this series instead of the usual 13 that an animated series would get. This is because Marvel, the studio that developed the series, put the budget from the final episode into making a failed X-Men pilot. So it's pretty telling that a studio didn't even want to finish the first season. With that said, it's still a somewhat interesting watch, even if it's not canon. The animation isn't horrible, and it's more science fiction-y setting at least differentiates it enough from the movie series.
2. Robocop: The Series (1994)
The next TV series to be greenlit was RoboCop: The Series, which supposedly takes place after the original film despite coming out a year after RoboCop 3 and keeping the same tone as the third film. It almost feels more like a G-rated show juxtaposed to the more gruesome moments in the first RoboCop movie. The pilot episode is actually adapted from a discarded RoboCop 2 script, and some critics at the time said it was better than the RoboCop 2 film, which I wholeheartedly disagree with. Unlike the animated series, a lot of names had to be changed for the live-action show, so Sgt. Reed became Sgt. Parks and Anne Lewis became Lisa Madigan, and The Old Man became The Chairman, but their roles stay mostly the same. The company OCP itself is presented more as ignorant and dumb instead of evil like they appear in RoboCop 2 and 3, and all the violence has been toned way down. But once you get used to that, the show is actually somewhat watchable. The characters grow on you, and Richard Eden does a pretty good job in the RoboCop role. It was also filmed in Toronto, where I used to live, so it's nice to spot a landmark or street I know when watching it. Like the animated series, this wasn't picked up for a second season, although the season finale does wrap up a lot of the plot lines, so it feels almost complete.
3. Robocop: Alpha Commando (1998)
The next RoboCop TV series was the second animated show, Robocop: Alpha Commando. This one was made in 1998, ten years after the first one, and somehow feels even more childish in its execution. This is probably because RoboCop almost never shoots anyone, even with his lasers. He almost always has another non-lethal force or just extends his arms and picks up people. It's as if he is Inspector Gadget or something. This series also has an evil shadow corporation that serves as the series’ main antagonist, and for the most part, they come across as pretty generic. RoboCop himself is given a huge redesign and feels almost nothing like himself. The show takes place ten years after the events of the movie series, and RoboCop has been cryogenically frozen. He's booted up and given a new female partner, and the first words he says to her are, “Who's the babe?” It's like either they didn't understand who RoboCop is as a character, or they just don't care. They also ignore Anne Lewis as a character, although if this takes place after RoboCop 3, she would be dead already. But it does still feature Sgt. Reed, played by the same actor as the Sargent from the original Live-Action TV series. This series also takes place in a much more advanced society than seen before, and even though it takes place 10 years in the future, Murphy's family, for some reason, hasn't aged a day compared to the flashbacks seen. All in all, this show came and went. Even though it got 40 episodes, it only lasted one season, and to be frank, there are much better animated shows to revisit from this time, like Godzilla: The Series or Men in Black: The Series, so you can probably skip this one altogether.
4. Robocop: Prime Directives (2001)
So we finally get to the last RoboCop series, RoboCop: Prime Directives, which came out in 2001 and was a 4 episode mini-series. This is another Live-action series, which may or may not take place after the third movie, but it sort of ignores most of RoboCop's backstory. We do see flashbacks of Murphy at his original police station before he was transferred at the start of the first film. If you missed the violence of the first two movies, then this show will scratch that itch, but it sometimes uses cheap CGI that just looks awful. Another thing this TV series has working against it is the actor who played Murphy just looks like a baby in the suit. They used a modified suit made for Peter Weller, but Page Fletcher, who played Murphy here, is probably half a foot shorter than Weller and looks like he is just swimming in the suit. It doesn't help that the other RoboCop model he fights against is played by a much taller actor, making him look even shorter. This series does sort of return to the western revenge themes of the original movie - the soundtrack even sounds like a Western Score - but the execution is extremely lacking. Funnily enough, it too was filmed in Toronto, and so many times I spotted places near where I used to work. But other than that, I found the show to be a pretty boring slog-fest. Though at least it tells a complete story in its four episodes, so it does have that going for it.
All in all, if you want more RoboCop in your life, the best place to start is probably RoboCop: The Series from 1994. It's not perfect, but at least it's watchable and does grow on you. Then if you want to check out the 1988 animated show, it’s an interesting experiment and the quickest one to watch of all of these choices. If you're feeling adventurous and can get over the execution, you can check out Prime Directives, but I'd definitely say avoid Alpha Commando. It’s way too long and misses the mark way too many times.
Thanks for viewing, and until next time, I’ll tell you something later!