"Sunny," the new Apple TV+ show, invites us to think about what even the most innocuous robots can be. Friends? A crime-solving partner? Or, perhaps, as the show’s opening scene suggests, even killers?
The dark drama-comedy, from Hollywood darling production studio A24 and starring "Parks & Recreation’s" Rashida Jones, tells the tale of the grieving Suzie Sakamoto, an expat in Kyoto grappling with the mysterious loss of her family in a plane crash. The twist is the eponymous Sunny, an irritatingly accommodative helper robot — designed by Suzie’s husband (who she thought made fridges), and which may be the key to finding the truth.
The inevitable place to set this show, then, is Japan. Robots — like bullet trains, kimonos and animal cafes — remain, rightly or wrongly, among the enduring go-to images of the country.