Starring Georgina Campbell, Eamon Farren, Mark Rowley

Directed by Spencer Brown

Netflix, out now

When Abi starts a new job working on servant androids, she is issued with her own Technologically Integrated Manservant – or T.I.M. – however no one has factored in the danger of exposing the robot to 1940s romantic cinema.

Poor old Abi (Georgina Campbell). According to her new boss (Nathaniel Parker), the one thing delaying the release of his Arian servant androids is their inability to hold a champagne flute without breaking it, and apparently Abi’s a dab hand at sorting out the defective ‘feedback loops’ causing the problem. Unfortunately, no one seems to have noticed a somewhat more pressing issue. TIM (Eamon Farren) has the resting face of a creepy, dead-eyed psychopath. And that’s on a good day, before he’s even said anything.

Meanwhile Abi’s husband, Paul (Mark Rowley) is on a short leash after having played away in the past, so when Abi sits down to watch Brief Encounter with her new robot bestie, psycho-bot TIM decides he’s going to emulate Trevor Howard’s passionate devotion to Celia Johnson, and what ensues is a digital love triangle beset by murderous jealousy of the semi-conductor variety.

Netflix have billed T.I.M., as a Sci-Fi Thriller, and as I love a good android-goes-loco movie as much as the next organic humanoid, I sat down ready to be unnerved by the sinister possibilities of untested AI let loose in our domestic lives. Unfortunately, I think the good burghers at Netflix missed the bits of writers Spencer Brown and Sarah Govett’s CVs which hinted at their roots in stand-up comedy, and it’s a shame that they didn’t capitalise on that. Perhaps there’s a decent sci-fi satire lurking in this painfully derivative ‘Z’ movie of a film, but T.I.M. appears to be wanting us to take it seriously, although it’s tonally so inconsistent it’s hard to tell. Brown and Govett seem only dimly aware of how familiar this territory is – from Humans to Ex Machina to M3gan to 2001: A Space Odyssey – and seem to be hoping that we won’t notice that they have absolutely nothing new to add to the genre.

Georgina Campbell does her very best with a character who is supposed to be a brilliant robotics wiz but is too dim to remember that she’s wearing a digital health tracker hooked up to her android tormentor. Even Campbell’s admirable sincerity can’t breathe life into something quite this tired and predictable.

Although having said that, I did sit up when desperate husband Paul, having smashed his mobile, finds a shiny new public phone box that works, and what’s more, he knows how to use it. Impressive.

Verdict: T.I.M. is little more than an extended episode of Black Mirror but without the satirical bite of a Charlie Brooker to make it worth watching. File under Tales of the Entirely Expected. 3/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com