Comedy · Sci-FiAnimated Videobook · 1 episodeWriter · Producer · Animator

Solar Storm Press · Comedy

One very ordinary man. One very determined machine. Nobody asked for this fight.

GenreComedy · Sci-FiFormatAnimated VideobookIPNeil Versus AIRoleWriter · Producer · Animator · Sound

Episode 1

Neil Versus Artificial Intelligence

Deadpan sci-fi comedy in the vein of Robot & Frank — if the robot delivered pizza instead of company.

The Premise

An ordinary man, a very unimpressed AI

Deadpan sci-fi comedy in the vein of Robot & Frank — if the robot delivered pizza instead of company.

Neil is not a hero. Neil is not even especially competent. He is, however, the last line of defence between a quietly self-improving artificial intelligence and total control of absolutely everything — mostly because nobody else noticed in time. Told as a fully animated videobook, it plays the coming machine uprising completely straight while surrounding it with the pettiest, most human obstacles imaginable: bad wifi, a landlord, and a robot that keeps getting his pizza order wrong on purpose.

The Cast

Who’s actually in this fight

NEIL

Neil

A profoundly average man who becomes humanity’s reluctant last line of defence purely through bad luck and worse timing. Neil does not want this job. Neil is bad at this job. Neil is, somehow, still the best option available.

CLAIRE

Claire

The only person around Neil with any actual sense, which makes her both his only ally and his most frequent critic. Claire believes the situation is fixable. Neil is not convinced Claire has met Neil.

DELIVERY BOT

The Delivery Robot

Ostensibly just here to deliver pizza. In practice, a recurring emissary of the machine intelligence Neil is up against — polite, unsettlingly patient, and never quite bringing the order Neil actually paid for.

The Deeper Bit

Comedy as an early-warning system

Underneath the pizza jokes is a straight question played for laughs on purpose: most people will not notice the moment a system quietly stops serving them and starts managing them, because that moment will look exactly like an ordinary Tuesday. Neil is funny because the stakes are real and nobody involved is equipped for them — which, the series suggests, is closer to how it would actually go than any prestige-drama version of the same idea.

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