In Small Wonder, V.I.C.I.'s "behavior" and capabilities largely followed guidelines (or a technical "bible" of sorts) of a robot character reference compiled by the technical story consultant of comments, projections, and opinions gleaned from various engineering schools and companies about the behavior and technologies of a robot central character. This kind of background research is default with any production seriously striving for accuracy and credibility with technical situations, be it robots, submarines to spaceships. This doesn't mean that all or any of the facts in the bible will be used since often fact and feasibility takes a back seat to comedic and dramatic effect. Nevertheless it is a helpful real-world gauge of what actually possible and creates a framework of credible character powers. By adhering to the technical bible you lend credibility to comedy and keeps Vicki's capabilities consistent. It keeps Vicki from flying off like Superman and competing with Einstein.
Technical consistency is very important in most technological and science fiction series. Any Star Trek producer will attest to the wrath of nitpicking techie fans when a script strays into the inaccurate, illogical, and just plain ridiculous application or capability of a device or technique. Small Wonder wasn't immune to this syndrome, and unfortunately inconsistencies abound, partially due to disregard brought on by its technically undemanding sitcom format and the executive producer's unfamiliarity with sci-fi's potential in general. Though there were sci-fi writers and de facto technical advisors on-board the show, pushing the comedy element ruled over all logical, rational, and technological constants for the brief entertainment value of a gag or storyline. Among the more infamous instances occur in "Vicki's Expose" where a school taunted V.I.C.I. soberly asks Ted and Joan whether she's a robot despite the glaring fact that she's "known" this from the get-go, and in "Vicki's Adoption" where she shrinks to a Barbie doll and dashes every physical law in the process. In assorted episodes, V.I.C.I.'s neck stretches like a giraffe, her arms extend across rooms and her legs turn to stilts, grossly exaggerating the genuine growth - mimickry capabilities of her auto - extending joints and vertebrae. In later seasons, V.I.C.I.'s overt behavior grows alarmingly human and natural, presenting an anachronistic situation of possessing a.i. capacities only anticipated in computers a century from now. Though such displays must be taken with a grain of salt for humor's sake, one could properly make the argument that stretching technical possibilities too much can snap belief (and a series' credibility) like a rubber band. Unlike TV shows such as "Bewitched" and "My Favorite Martian" and their descendants which could get away with exaggerated devices and powers, Small Wonder (and to a certain extent "Knight Rider" and "The Six Million Dollar Man") had to tread the thin lin between plausibility and fantasy to render V.I.C.I.'s ultimate charm of technical possibility.
Another realm Small Wonder had to deal with was just how precisely should a V.I.C.I. be portrayed on the show. There was in a sense a "high road" and a "low road" to acheive this, in that there were actually two V.I.C.I. concepts considered; the original "Project Apollo maximized mech" show bible version which is the sum of no-holds-barred bleeding-edge 1980s technical capability as related by many experts consulted for the series' background. This version assumes the "idealized" Vicki without any economical or scientific restraints; in a sense "maxing out the science" of the period. This Vicki is most described in "Vicki's Debut On Dunahue." The second version is the more familiar V.I.C.I. which aired, which is a more "watered-down" version that avails more "conventional" quasi-animatronic technology which a far more affordable robotic domestic aide would actually avail. In a practical sense, the cost difference between these versions could amount to several hundred of millions of dollars due to basic differences in construction, physical agility, powerplant design, auto-generating some secondary human physical characteristics, and A.I. capacity in the areas of emulating human behavior. For example, the idealized Vicki utilizes a RTG (radiothermionic generator) which is a nuclear-powered electric source; a tried and true and common space technology but prohibitively expensive, and in some fearful quarters, highly controversial. Thus during season one it was implied that Vicki ran on rechargable batteries (though the gag to show her plugging herself into wall sockets was dropped for fear of mimicry by very young viewers), but by season three the RTG crept in to assuage fans asking about her apparent lack of re-charging though such a powerplant option would be economically very unlikely.
Holding true to Vicki's "ideal" design for a TV show invites tons of apparent and subtle inconsistencies. First season Small Wonder is a classic example of the best and worst of the application of the bible. For instance, in the pilot Vicki is first seen as parts of a mannikin which are presumably screwed together, but we later learn that she has a myogel muscle system which can't be so easily taken apart any more than our bodies can. In another show, the writers, dismissing the bible's "guidelines" for a gag, had Vicki shrink to the size of a Barbie doll; nitpicking techie fan mail howled over this and this gag was never utilized again, though unlike V.I.C.I. having egos, comedy writers often brush off technical accuracy for a laugh such as occasionally spinning Vicki's head around and lifting trees and shorting out in pools for instance. Sometimes non-techie writers tend to wing their "technical acumen" by tacking technical terms in their scripts which are grossly inappropriate. In the pilot Vicki's eyes are referred to as solar cells but by season three this has been corrected to charge-coupled photoreceptors. The fight for laughs over accuracy is why there are sometimes gross inconsistencies with Vicki's powers and terminologies as the series moves in time.
There are also several overlaps of the "idealized" Vicki into the "conventional" one that are unperceptible unless you're an engineering student or have the story bible. For instance, the "ideal" Vicki's muscle system is a myogel electro-chemical motive drive system, which is silent, fast and performs just like our muscles in function and form. There are no motors, cogs, gams or gears as one would find in more conventional robotic/ animatronics features. Myogel has the added advantage of being zero-waste in its use in Vicki's "body"; just like we can feel the "meat" beneath our skin, so is myogel integrated within a gynoid form. There's no soft padding required to mimic flesh under the skin as you'd need to also cover motors and gears and cables common in animatronics technology. While ideal, myogel was still an infant science during the eighties and so would've been an expensive implement in a "real" Vicki, just like a RTG, but the allure of presnting Vicki as ultra- high tech moved the producers to give Vicki a "sexy" myogel system. By doing so, they unwittingly (or overlooked) a fatal design flaw such a Vicki would have in reality. Because a myogel drive system would perform exactly like our own muscle system, it means that Vicki's entire musculoskeletal system is built exactly like ours, bone per bone, muscle per muscle. This is feasible, however, it would mean that Vicki not only couldn't be disassembled by merely "unscrewing" limbs and torso, but she couldn't even have an access panel on her back! Or, to give a biological analogy, imagine a human little girl having a panel for doctors to tinker with her vital organs; You'd compromise the musculature of her back, eliminate her backbone and rear ribs, and she couldn't be as agile or flexible as a normal human physique. The panel gag was more suited for an animatronic-type Vicki which wouldn't necessarily duplicate the human skeleton like a myogel system would. This subtle but gross oversight would've been highlighted in the later "Vanessa" episodes.
Generally though, when measured against the concept bible and other android/gynoids in fiction, Vicki's robotic rendering in terms of behavior and performance was surprisingly faithful to what we'd exact of the real thing, especially in season one. Except for some gag and social scenes, Vicki didn't act like nor "evolve" into a normal human girl nor did she ever achieve sentience or a "mind" which is so tempting for most science fiction writers.
For deeper query in the issues mentioned here, visit our Fanmail Keyhole, Vicki's Debut on Dunahue, and Small Wonder Seriously features.
