Suzie (Rashida Jones) has no friends in Kyoto. When we meet her in the first moments of Apple TV+’s “Sunny,” her husband and son are missing and presumed dead when their airplane crashes; she has a testy relationship with her mother-in-law, and because of her dyslexia, she still hasn’t learned Japanese. There’s barely a reason to exit her fugue state until the delivery of an at-home assistant: the aptly named Sunny .
Designed by her husband (who, until the moment of Sunny’s arrival, Suzie always thought worked in refrigerators), Sunny is at first a burden, then a sympathetic ear, and then, miraculously, a friend. But none of “Sunny” would work if we don’t buy the very real relationship that springs up between a human woman and a robot. “We knew from the jump that we didn’t want Rashida or our other actors to be acting opposite a tennis ball or some kind of CG thing,” showrunner Katie Robbins told IndieWire.
“You wanted a corporeal being there to make it feel authentic.” Enter Weta (of course). Working with Robbins’ needs and specifications in mind, they conjured up multiple prototypes for what an robotic at-home assistant could realistically be, not just on the show but within the world of the show, as well.
One absolute rule: Stay away from the uncanny valley of making Sunny too humanoid. The final design accomplishes several things: It is realistically futuristic while also endearing, with an oversized childlike head and the economical yet expr.
