Episode no. Season 5
Episode 8 Written by Rod Serling Production code 2604 | Directed by Don Siegel Featured music Stock Original air date November 15, 1963 | |
"Uncle Simon" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
Plot
Barbara Polk has lived with her aged, sadistic uncle, Simon Polk, for 25 years—even though she hates him—as she is the only heir to his fortune. Simon uses a laboratory in the basement of his house to develop inventions, and has forbidden her from going down there to see his latest project. When she sneaks into the basement to peek at it, Simon catches her and raises his cane to strike her. Barbara blocks the cane with her arm, causing him to fall down the stairs and break his back. Frustrated with his feebleness, nagging, and constant demands of hot chocolate, Barbara allows him to succumb to his injuries.
Following Simon's death, his lawyer, Mr. Schwimmer, informs Barbara that in order to inherit his estate, she must live in the house and look after his last invention, a robot also named Simon. Although its behavior and speech are very mechanical at first, it eventually begins to act and sound just like him—right down to the old man's limp, which it develops as a result of damage from Barbara's attempt to destroy it by pushing it down the stairs. Since Mr. Schwimmer makes regular visits to ensure that Barbara is taking proper care of the robot, she has no choice but to submit to its continuing verbal abuse on pain of being disinherited.