R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)
Encyclopedia
R.U.R. is a 1920 science fiction
play
in the Czech language
by Karel Čapek
. R.U.R. stands for Rossum's Universal Robots, an English phrase used as the subtitle in the Czech original. It premiered in 1921
and introduced the word "robot
" to the English language and to science fiction
as a whole.
The play begins in a factory that makes artificial people called "robots". Unlike the modern usage of the term, these creatures are closer to the modern idea of androids or even clones, as they can be mistaken for humans and can think for themselves. They seem happy to work for humans, although that changes and a hostile robot rebellion
leads to the extinction of the human race. After finishing the manuscript, Čapek realized that he had created a modern version of the Jewish Golem legend
. He later took a different approach to the same theme in War with the Newts
, in which non-humans become a servant class in human society.
R.U.R is dark but not without hope, and was successful in its day in both Europe and the United States.
Humans
Robots and Robotesses
Helena, the daughter of the president of a major industrial power, arrives at the island factory of Rossum's Universal Robots. She meets Domin, the General Manager of R.U.R., who tells her the history of the company. It started in 1920 when a man named Rossum came to an island to study marine biology and accidentally discovered a chemical that behaved exactly like protoplasm, except that it did not mind being knocked around. The chemical was discovered in 1932. Rossum attempted to make a dog and a man and failed. His nephew came to see his Uncle, and the two argued nonstop, largely because Old Rossum only wanted to create animals to prove that there was not only no God necessary but no God at all, and Young Rossum only wanted to make millions. Eventually, Young Rossum locked his uncle in a laboratory to play with his monsters and mutants, while Young Rossum built factories, and cranked out Robots by the thousands. By the time the play is set (in the 1950s or 1960s, presumably), Robots are cheap and available all over the world. Robots are now becoming necessary, as it is revealed that things are now a fifth the cost because of Robots. Helena meets Fabry, Dr. Gall, Alquist, and Hallemeier, and reveals she is a representative of the League of Humanity, a human rights organization that wishes to "free" the Robots. The managers of the factory find this a ridiculous proposition, viewing the Robots as any other major appliance. One of the things Helena requests is that the Robots get paid so that they can buy things they like, but the Robots do not like anything. Helena is eventually convinced of what a waste of money the League Of Humanity is. Domin and Helena fall in love and are engaged to be married.
Act II
Ten years later, Helena and her nurse Nana are talking about current events; in particular the decline in human births. Helena and Domin reminisce about the day they met, and summarize the last ten years of world history as shaped by the new worldwide Robot-based economy. Helena meets Dr. Gall's new Robot experiment, Radius, and Dr Gall describes his experimental Robotess, Robot Helena. Both are more advanced, fully featured versions. In secret, Helena burns the formula required to create Robots. The revolt of the Robots reaches Rossum's island as the act ends.
Act III
The characters sense that the very universality of the Robots presents a danger. Reminiscent of the Tower of Babel, the characters discuss whether creating national Robots who were unable to communicate beyond their language group would have been desirable. As Robot forces lay siege to the factory, Helena reveals she has burnt the formula. The characters lament the end of humanity, and defend their actions despite their imminent deaths as a direct result. Robots storm the factory and kill all the humans, except for Alquist, whom the Robots spare because they recognize that "he works with his hands like the Robots".
Epilogue
Years have passed and all humans had been killed by the robot revolution except for Alquist. Alquist has been working to recreate the formula to make robots. Because he is not a scientist, he has not made any progress. He has begged the robot government to search for surviving humans and they have done so. There are no other surviving humans. Officials from the robot government approach Alquist and first order and then beg him to complete the formula, even if it means he will have to kill and dissect other Robots to do so. Alquist yields, to kill and dissect, which completes the circle of violence begun in Act Two. Alquist is disgusted by it. Robots Primus and Helena develop human feelings and fall in love. Playing a hunch, Alquist threatens to dissect Primus and then Helena; each begs him to take themselves and spare the other. Alquist realizes that they are the new Adam and Eve, and gives charge of the world to them.
In a limited sense, they resemble more modern conceptions of man-made life forms, such as androids, the Replicants in Blade Runner
, and the Cylon
s in the new Battlestar Galactica
, but in Čapek's time there was no conception of modern genetic engineering (DNA's role in heredity was not confirmed until 1952). There are descriptions of kneading-troughs for robot skin, great vats for liver and brains, and a factory for producing bones. Nerve fibers, arteries, and intestines are spun on factory bobbins, while the Robots themselves are assembled like automobiles. Čapek's robots are biological machines, but they are still assembled, as opposed to grown or born.
which displaced older words such as "automaton
" or "android" in languages around the world. In an article in Lidové noviny
Karel Čapek named his brother Josef
as the true inventor of the word. In its original Czech, robota means forced labour
of the kind that serfs
had to perform on their masters' lands, and is derived from rab, meaning "slave".
The name Rossum is an allusion to the Czech word rozum, meaning "reason," "wisdom," "intellect" or "common-sense." It has been suggested that the allusion might be preserved by translating "Rossum" as "Reason," but all published translations to date have left the name untouched.
Isaac Asimov
, author of the Robot Series
of books and creator of the Three Laws of Robotics
, stated: "Capek's play is, in my own opinion, a terribly bad one, but it is immortal for that one word. It contributed the word 'robot' not only to English but, through English, to all the languages in which science fiction is now written."
by Aventinum in 1920, and premiered in that city in 1921. It was translated from Czech into English by Paul Selver and adapted for the English stage by Nigel Playfair
. Basil Dean
produced R.U.R. in April 1923 for the Reandean Company at St. Martin's Theatre, London.
The play's American première was at the Garrick Theatre
in New York City in October 1922, where it ran for 184 performances, a production in which Spencer Tracy
and Pat O'Brien
played robots in their Broadway
debuts. It also played in Chicago and Los Angeles during 1923. In the late 1930s, the play was staged in the U.S. by the Federal Theatre Project
's Marionette Theatre in New York.
– the first piece of television science-fiction
ever to be broadcast. In 1941 BBC radio
presented a radio play version, and in 1948, another television adaptation – this time of the entire play, running to ninety minutes – was screened by the BBC. In this version Radius was played by Patrick Troughton
who later went on to be the second Doctor Who
. None of these three productions survive in the BBC's archives. BBC Radio 3 dramatised the play again in 1989, and this version has been released commercially. The Hollywood Theater of the Ear
dramatized an unabridged audio version of R.U.R. which is available on the collection 2000x: Tales of the Next Millennia.
In August 2010, Portugese multi-media artist Leonel Moura
's R.U.R.: The Birth of the Robot, inspired by the Capek play, was performed at Itaú Cultural in São Paulo, Brazil. It utilized actual robots on stage interacting with the human actors.
The Sci-Fi-London Film Festival
plans to stage a new translation and adaptation of the play in 2011, to coincide with the Festival's 10th Anniversary.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
play
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
in the Czech language
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
by Karel Čapek
Karel Capek
Karel Čapek was Czech writer of the 20th century.-Biography:Born in 1890 in the Bohemian mountain village of Malé Svatoňovice to an overbearing, emotional mother and a distant yet adored father, Čapek was the youngest of three siblings...
. R.U.R. stands for Rossum's Universal Robots, an English phrase used as the subtitle in the Czech original. It premiered in 1921
1921 in literature
The year 1921 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Edgar Rice Burroughs – Tarzan the Terrible*James Branch Cabell – Figures of Earth*Hall Caine – The Master of Man*Willa Cather – Alexander's Bridge...
and introduced the word "robot
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
" to the English language and to science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
as a whole.
The play begins in a factory that makes artificial people called "robots". Unlike the modern usage of the term, these creatures are closer to the modern idea of androids or even clones, as they can be mistaken for humans and can think for themselves. They seem happy to work for humans, although that changes and a hostile robot rebellion
Rebellion
Rebellion, uprising or insurrection, is a refusal of obedience or order. It may, therefore, be seen as encompassing a range of behaviors aimed at destroying or replacing an established authority such as a government or a head of state...
leads to the extinction of the human race. After finishing the manuscript, Čapek realized that he had created a modern version of the Jewish Golem legend
Golem
In Jewish folklore, a golem is an animated anthropomorphic being, created entirely from inanimate matter. The word was used to mean an amorphous, unformed material in Psalms and medieval writing....
. He later took a different approach to the same theme in War with the Newts
War with the Newts
War with the Newts , also translated as War with the Salamanders, is a 1936 satirical science fiction story by Czech author Karel Čapek. It concerns the discovery in the Pacific of a sea-dwelling race, an intelligent breed of newts, who are initially enslaved and exploited...
, in which non-humans become a servant class in human society.
R.U.R is dark but not without hope, and was successful in its day in both Europe and the United States.
Characters
Parenthesis indicate differences in translations.Humans
- Harry Domin (Domain) — General Manager, R.U.R.
- Fabry — Chief Engineer, R.U.R.
- Dr. Gall — Head of the Physiological Dept, R.U.R.
- Dr. Hellman (Hallemeier) — Psychologist-in-Chief
- Jacob Berman (Busman) — Managing Director, R.U.R.
- Alquist — Clerk of the Works, R.U.R.
- Helena Glory — President of the Humanity League, daughter of President Glory
- Emma (Nana) — Helena's maid
Robots and Robotesses
- Marius, a Robot
- Sulla, a Robotess
- Radius, a Robot
- Primus, a Robot
- Helena, a Robotess
- Daemon (Damon), a Robot
Plot
Act IHelena, the daughter of the president of a major industrial power, arrives at the island factory of Rossum's Universal Robots. She meets Domin, the General Manager of R.U.R., who tells her the history of the company. It started in 1920 when a man named Rossum came to an island to study marine biology and accidentally discovered a chemical that behaved exactly like protoplasm, except that it did not mind being knocked around. The chemical was discovered in 1932. Rossum attempted to make a dog and a man and failed. His nephew came to see his Uncle, and the two argued nonstop, largely because Old Rossum only wanted to create animals to prove that there was not only no God necessary but no God at all, and Young Rossum only wanted to make millions. Eventually, Young Rossum locked his uncle in a laboratory to play with his monsters and mutants, while Young Rossum built factories, and cranked out Robots by the thousands. By the time the play is set (in the 1950s or 1960s, presumably), Robots are cheap and available all over the world. Robots are now becoming necessary, as it is revealed that things are now a fifth the cost because of Robots. Helena meets Fabry, Dr. Gall, Alquist, and Hallemeier, and reveals she is a representative of the League of Humanity, a human rights organization that wishes to "free" the Robots. The managers of the factory find this a ridiculous proposition, viewing the Robots as any other major appliance. One of the things Helena requests is that the Robots get paid so that they can buy things they like, but the Robots do not like anything. Helena is eventually convinced of what a waste of money the League Of Humanity is. Domin and Helena fall in love and are engaged to be married.
Act II
Ten years later, Helena and her nurse Nana are talking about current events; in particular the decline in human births. Helena and Domin reminisce about the day they met, and summarize the last ten years of world history as shaped by the new worldwide Robot-based economy. Helena meets Dr. Gall's new Robot experiment, Radius, and Dr Gall describes his experimental Robotess, Robot Helena. Both are more advanced, fully featured versions. In secret, Helena burns the formula required to create Robots. The revolt of the Robots reaches Rossum's island as the act ends.
Act III
The characters sense that the very universality of the Robots presents a danger. Reminiscent of the Tower of Babel, the characters discuss whether creating national Robots who were unable to communicate beyond their language group would have been desirable. As Robot forces lay siege to the factory, Helena reveals she has burnt the formula. The characters lament the end of humanity, and defend their actions despite their imminent deaths as a direct result. Robots storm the factory and kill all the humans, except for Alquist, whom the Robots spare because they recognize that "he works with his hands like the Robots".
Epilogue
Years have passed and all humans had been killed by the robot revolution except for Alquist. Alquist has been working to recreate the formula to make robots. Because he is not a scientist, he has not made any progress. He has begged the robot government to search for surviving humans and they have done so. There are no other surviving humans. Officials from the robot government approach Alquist and first order and then beg him to complete the formula, even if it means he will have to kill and dissect other Robots to do so. Alquist yields, to kill and dissect, which completes the circle of violence begun in Act Two. Alquist is disgusted by it. Robots Primus and Helena develop human feelings and fall in love. Playing a hunch, Alquist threatens to dissect Primus and then Helena; each begs him to take themselves and spare the other. Alquist realizes that they are the new Adam and Eve, and gives charge of the world to them.
Robots
The Robots described in Čapek's play are not robots in the popularly understood, modern sense of a "mechanical device that sometimes resembles a human." They are not metallic or mechanical, but rather biological entities that may be mistaken for humans. A comic scene at the beginning of the play shows Helena arguing with her future lover, Harry Domin, because she cannot believe his secretary is a robotess:
DOMIN: Sulla, let Miss Glory have a look at you.
HELENA: (stands and offers her hand) Pleased to meet you. It must be very hard for you out here, cut off from the rest of the world.
SULLA: I do not know the rest of the world Miss Glory. Please sit down.
HELENA: (sits) Where are you from?
SULLA: From here, the factory
HELENA: Oh, you were born here.
SULLA: Yes I was made here.
HELENA: (startled) What?
DOMIN: (laughing) Sulla isn't a person, Miss Glory, she's a robot.
HELENA: Oh, please forgive me ...
In a limited sense, they resemble more modern conceptions of man-made life forms, such as androids, the Replicants in Blade Runner
Blade Runner
Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K...
, and the Cylon
Cylon (reimagining)
Cylons are a race which appear in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series and its prequel Caprica. They have several forms, some of which resemble and even mimic the behavior of humans, while others are mechanical in appearance and function.In the first DVD, one of the show's creators...
s in the new Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)
Battlestar Galactica is an American military science fiction television series, and part of the Battlestar Galactica franchise. The show was developed by Ronald D. Moore as a re-imagining of the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series created by Glen A. Larson...
, but in Čapek's time there was no conception of modern genetic engineering (DNA's role in heredity was not confirmed until 1952). There are descriptions of kneading-troughs for robot skin, great vats for liver and brains, and a factory for producing bones. Nerve fibers, arteries, and intestines are spun on factory bobbins, while the Robots themselves are assembled like automobiles. Čapek's robots are biological machines, but they are still assembled, as opposed to grown or born.
Origin of the word
The play introduced the word RobotRobot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
which displaced older words such as "automaton
Automaton
An automaton is a self-operating machine. The word is sometimes used to describe a robot, more specifically an autonomous robot. An alternative spelling, now obsolete, is automation.-Etymology:...
" or "android" in languages around the world. In an article in Lidové noviny
Lidové noviny
Lidové noviny is a daily newspaper published in the Czech Republic. It is the oldest Czech daily. Its profile is nowadays a national news daily covering political, economic, cultural and scientific affairs, mostly with a centre-right, conservative view...
Karel Čapek named his brother Josef
Josef Capek
Josef Čapek was a Czech artist who was best known as a painter, but who was also noted as a writer and a poet. He invented the word robot, which was introduced into literature by his brother, Karel Čapek.- Biography :...
as the true inventor of the word. In its original Czech, robota means forced labour
Unfree labour
Unfree labour includes all forms of slavery as well as all other related institutions .-Payment for unfree labour:If payment occurs, it may be in one or more of the following forms:...
of the kind that serfs
Serfdom
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...
had to perform on their masters' lands, and is derived from rab, meaning "slave".
The name Rossum is an allusion to the Czech word rozum, meaning "reason," "wisdom," "intellect" or "common-sense." It has been suggested that the allusion might be preserved by translating "Rossum" as "Reason," but all published translations to date have left the name untouched.
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
, author of the Robot Series
Isaac Asimov's Robot Series
Isaac Asimov's Robot Series is a series of short stories and novels by Isaac Asimov featuring positronic robots.- Short stories :Most of Asimov's robot short stories are set in the first age of positronic robotics and space exploration...
of books and creator of the Three Laws of Robotics
Three Laws of Robotics
The Three Laws of Robotics are a set of rules devised by the science fiction author Isaac Asimov and later added to. The rules are introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", although they were foreshadowed in a few earlier stories...
, stated: "Capek's play is, in my own opinion, a terribly bad one, but it is immortal for that one word. It contributed the word 'robot' not only to English but, through English, to all the languages in which science fiction is now written."
Production history
The work was published in PraguePrague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
by Aventinum in 1920, and premiered in that city in 1921. It was translated from Czech into English by Paul Selver and adapted for the English stage by Nigel Playfair
Nigel Playfair
Sir Nigel Playfair was the actor-manager of the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, London, in the 1920s. He studied at University College, Oxford....
. Basil Dean
Basil Dean
Basil Herbert Dean CBE was an English actor, writer, film producer/director and theatrical producer/director....
produced R.U.R. in April 1923 for the Reandean Company at St. Martin's Theatre, London.
The play's American première was at the Garrick Theatre
Garrick Theatre
The Garrick Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster. It opened on 24 April 1889 with The Profligate, a play by Arthur Wing Pinero. In its early years, it appears to have specialised in the performance of melodrama, and today the theatre is a...
in New York City in October 1922, where it ran for 184 performances, a production in which Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
and Pat O'Brien
Pat O'Brien (actor)
Pat O’Brien was an American film actor with more than one hundred screen credits.-Early life:O’Brien was born William Joseph Patrick O’Brien to an Irish-American Catholic family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He served as an altar boy at Gesu Church while growing up near 13th and Clybourn streets...
played robots in their Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
debuts. It also played in Chicago and Los Angeles during 1923. In the late 1930s, the play was staged in the U.S. by the Federal Theatre Project
Federal Theatre Project
The Federal Theatre Project was a New Deal project to fund theatre and other live artistic performances in the United States during the Great Depression. It was one of five Federal One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administration...
's Marionette Theatre in New York.
Adaptations
In February 1938, a thirty-five minute adaptation of a section of the play was broadcast on BBC TelevisionBBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
– the first piece of television science-fiction
Science fiction on television
Science fiction first appeared on a television program during the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Special effects and other production techniques allow creators to present a living visual image of an imaginary world not limited by the constraints of reality; this makes television an excellent medium...
ever to be broadcast. In 1941 BBC radio
BBC Home Service
The BBC Home Service was a British national radio station which broadcast from 1939 until 1967.-Development:Between the 1920s and the outbreak of The Second World War, the BBC had developed two nationwide radio services, the BBC National Programme and the BBC Regional Programme...
presented a radio play version, and in 1948, another television adaptation – this time of the entire play, running to ninety minutes – was screened by the BBC. In this version Radius was played by Patrick Troughton
Patrick Troughton
Patrick George Troughton was an English actor most widely known for his roles in fantasy, science fiction and horror films, particularly in his role as the second incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running British science-fiction television series Doctor Who, which he played from 1966 to 1969,...
who later went on to be the second Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
. None of these three productions survive in the BBC's archives. BBC Radio 3 dramatised the play again in 1989, and this version has been released commercially. The Hollywood Theater of the Ear
Hollywood Theater of the Ear
Hollywood Theater of the Ear is a non-profit production company specializing in audio theater, founded in 1993 by Yuri Rasovsky, which releases productions through Blackstone Audiobooks.-External links:*...
dramatized an unabridged audio version of R.U.R. which is available on the collection 2000x: Tales of the Next Millennia.
In August 2010, Portugese multi-media artist Leonel Moura
Leonel Moura
Leonel Moura is a conceptual artist whose work shifted in the late 90’s from photo based work to Artificial Intelligence and Robotic art. Since then he has produced several Painting Robots and the Robotarium, a zoo for robots, the first of its kind in the world...
's R.U.R.: The Birth of the Robot, inspired by the Capek play, was performed at Itaú Cultural in São Paulo, Brazil. It utilized actual robots on stage interacting with the human actors.
The Sci-Fi-London Film Festival
Sci-Fi-London
SCI-FI-LONDON , is a UK based film festival, dedicated to the science fiction and fantasy genres, which began in 2002.-About the Festival:...
plans to stage a new translation and adaptation of the play in 2011, to coincide with the Festival's 10th Anniversary.
In popular culture
- In the American science fiction television series DollhouseDollhouse (TV series)Dollhouse is an American science fiction television series created by writer and director Joss Whedon under Mutant Enemy Productions. It premiered on February 13, 2009, on the Fox network and was officially cancelled on November 11, 2009. The final episode aired on January 29, 2010...
, the antagonist corporation, Rossum Corp., is named after the play. - In the Star Trek episode "Requiem for Methuselah", the android's name is Rayna Capek.
- In Batman: The Animated SeriesBatman: The Animated SeriesBatman: The Animated Series is an American animated series based on the DC Comics character Batman. The series featured an ensemble cast of many voice-actors including Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Arleen Sorkin, and Loren Lester. The series won four Emmy Awards and was nominated...
, the scientist that created the HARDAC machine is named Karl Rossum. HARDAC created mechanical replicants to replace existing humans, with the ultimate goal of replacing all humans. One of the robots is seen driving a car with "RUR" as the license plate number. - In the 1995 science fiction series The Outer Limits, in the remake of the "I, Robot" episode from the original 1964 series, the business where the robot Adam LinkAdam LinkAdam Link is a fictional robot, made in the likeness of a man, who becomes self-aware, and the protagonist of several science fiction short stories written by Eando Binder . The stories were originally published in Amazing Stories from 1939 to 1942.In all, ten Adam Link stories were published...
is built is named "Rossum Hall Robotics". - The 1999 Blake's 7Blake's 7Blake's 7 is a British science fiction television series produced by the BBC for its BBC1 channel. The series was created by Terry Nation, a prolific television writer and creator of the Daleks for the television series Doctor Who. Four series of Blake's 7 were produced and broadcast between 1978...
radio play The Syndeton Experiment included a character named Dr. Rossum who turned humans into robots. - In the "Fear of a Bot PlanetFear of a Bot Planet"Fear of a Bot Planet" is the fifth episode in season one of Futurama. It originally aired in North America on April 20, 1999. The episode was written by Heather Lombard and Evan Gore and directed by Peter Avanzino and Carlos Baeza....
" episode of the animated science fiction TV series FuturamaFuturamaFuturama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J...
, the Planet Express crew is ordered to make a delivery on a planet called "Chapek 9" which is inhabited solely by robots.
External links
- General information on the play, including a plot summary and photographs from various historical productions
- R.U.R. in Czech from Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
- English language translation by David Wyllie
- Audio extracts from the SCI-FI-LONDON adaptation
- Karel Čapek bio.
- Online facsimile version of the 1920 first edition in Czech.