Suzie, an American living in Kyoto, whose husband and son vanish in a plane crash, is gifted a domestic robot from her husband’s tech company.

I can’t pretend I didn’t feel a little weary at the prospect of watching yet another AI drama featuring a robot and a grieving human. Surely Apple+ and the show’s creator Kate Robbins were flogging a dead semi-conductor. Thankfully, this new ten-part series is proof that it doesn’t matter how old the story is, it really is about the way you tell ’em.

Sunny is a real delight (sorry – I just had to get that out of my system). Yes, the building blocks are all very familiar. Domestic bot – the titular Sunny (voiced by Joanna Sotomura) – is reminiscent of GERTY, Sam Rockwell’s ambivalent lunar companion in Moon, challenging the audience to decide whether their apparent robotic naivety is benevolent or malign.

We’ve also seen many a grieving partner discovering uncomfortable secrets about their lost spouse, and I’ve watched more dramas about futuristic corporate cover-ups than I’ve had cold sushi takeaways.

What makes this absorbing and fresh is primarily the richness, dark humour and pin sharp script, but kudos has to go to Rashida Jones who layers Suzie’s grief for husband Masa (Hidetoshi Nishijima) with sometimes startling emotional contradictions. Despite the quasi-futuristic setting Sunny is firmly rooted in a truthful understanding of the human condition, and the friendship that develops between Suzie and her AI is engaging and surprisingly believable. You want time with them, and my only caveat is that the energy dips slightly whenever they’re not on screen together.

Verdict: By the end of episode two Sunny’s plot is thickening nicely and I’m confident that I’ve got eight more episodes of finely tuned AI drama to come. 9/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com