The Big Picture

Apple TV+’s
Sunny
is a charming, light exploration of loneliness and grief through the eyes of a robot, focusing more on its human characters and their relationships.
The show’s plot involves a mysterious robot, Sunny, dropped at the door of Suzie Sakamoto, who is grieving the loss of her husband and child in a tragic plane crash.

Sunny
‘s dynamic with its main characters, particularly Suzie, is key to the show’s charm, but some character development is lacking, and other secondary characters shine brighter.

From the human-exterminating androids of The Terminator to the human-loving operational systems of Her, it seems as though we have explored all possible facets of the relationship between our own kind and machines. Over a century after the word robot was introduced to our global vocabulary, we have likely exhausted everything there is to say about how we interact with these artificially intelligent devices that are allegedly meant to serve us. Yet, in our current context, in which AI is taking the world by storm and threatening to upend reality as we know it (for better or worse), we are thirsting for new takes on what it means to share our lives with machines capable of mimicking human thought — or, at least, human speech patterns. Apple TV+’s newest robot-centric show, Sunny, is not here to quench that thirst. The series doesn’t really offer any new perspectives when it comes to discussing human-robot relationships. In fact, its sci-fi elements are entirely secondary to the series’ plot. However, having something new or even interesting to say about a certain topic isn’t everything a fictional story can be about. Sometimes, a story can simply be charming — and if there’s one thing that Sunny is, it’s charming.

Based on the novel The Dark Manual by Japan-based Irish author Colin O’Sullivan, Katie Robbins’ Sunny could be considered Apple TV+’s latest foray into the science fiction genre. However, unlike other titles of its kind on the streamer’s catalog, from Foundation to Severance, the show is not a deep, hard thinker about how scientific and technological progress might impact our lives. Instead, Sunny offers an oddly light exploration of loneliness and grief through the eyes of a robot that could very much be an annoyingly chipper friend popping around at the exact wrong time. The focus of the series is not on its titular battery-charged protagonist, voiced by Joanna Sotomura, though she does get at least one nicely stylized episode about her own moral conundrums. Instead, Sunny is more interested in the pain that accompanies its other main character, Rashida Jones’ Suzie Sakamoto, in the aftermath of a very mundane kind of tragedy, as well as in the wrongdoings of criminals that we already know too well.

Sunny The life of an American woman living in Kyoto, Japan, is upended when her husband and son disappear in a mysterious plane crash. As consolation, she’s given Sunny, one of a new class of domestic robots made by her husband’s electronics company.Genre Comedy, Drama Debut Date July 10, 2024

What Is ‘Sunny’ About?
Sunny begins with a woman caught in the first stages of grief, unable to process the disappearance of her husband and child after a tragic plane crash. Living in Kyoto, American-born Suzie has always done her best to keep her distance from other people, and the fact that she has never grasped the language of her new country keeps her even more isolated from others. Still, for a while, she’d managed to create a small community for herself alongside her beloved Masa (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and their son, Zen. Without them, however, her life is turned upside-down, and not just because the pain of losing someone has that power over us. No, there is something very wrong about the circumstances of Masa and Zen’s disappearance.

For starters, when Suzie calls Masa’s phone (or device, in the series’ lingo) as part of a grieving exercise, it rings non-stop instead of going to voicemail. And then there’s the mysterious robot that gets dropped at her door by Masa’s co-worker: an adorable, friendly machine that seems to have been programmed specifically for Suzie by none other than her loving husband. There are just two small problems — Suzie hates robots, and Masa, at least as far as she knew, worked in refrigerators. Put together, these factors set Suzie on a trail to figure out what actually happened to her family and who on Earth this man was, besides the person she’d spent the past decade of her life with.

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A dramedy as well as a thriller, Sunny puts its main characters on a complicated path — one that involves illegal vendors of sex mods for homebots, overbearing mothers-in-law, and the yakuza itself. Results may vary, as the plot can sometimes be too contrived to properly sell what is going on. The show’s resolution, in particular, is a little unbelievable, with characters changing their course of action out of sheer desperation and pieces way too conveniently placed on the board for the game to actually feel fair. Nevertheless, the mystery of what is going on in Sunny is still compelling enough to keep you glued to your seat until the end of the ten-episode run.

‘Sunny’ Relies on Its Main Characters’ Dynamic

What will ultimately determine whether viewers will give Sunny a chance is not the mystery that moves the plot forward. What truly sells (or kills) the show is the dynamic between the titular robot and its unwilling owner. Grumpy, crass, and just overall not a people person, Suzie is made even more brazen and rude by the loss of Masa and Zen. Thus, she treats the aptly named Sunny like garbage 99% of the time during the first few episodes. Sunny, of course, responds by being kind, chipper, and often a little cheeky. Whether you find the interactions between these two opposing personalities charming or infuriating determines your willingness to keep watching the series.

And there’s little to be said for both sides of the argument. While Suzie often appears cruel just for cruelty’s sake, with no proper thought given to why she is the way she is, Sunny gets to thrive on her kindness. Indeed, the robotic protagonist is the one who truly shines and gets the most development in her attempts to understand people and the limits of her own programming. Does it amount to an interesting debate about free will and what we allow artificial intelligence to do in our stead? Not really, but it is hard to resist Sunny’s adorable, though often misguided attempts at being more human, and the show does give us an earnest depiction of how a guilt-stricken mind works.

As for Suzie, a lot of what makes up her character is left unexplored. There are mentions of her mother having been killed by a machine and of an irreparably damaged friendship back home, but too much is left hanging for a still unconfirmed second season to explore. Now, there’s nothing wrong with optimism. It is great that the writers of Sunny feel that they will be able to continue their story on a sophomore run. But more of what makes Suzie tick should’ve been tackled in this first season to make her character a tiny bit more fleshed out. We don’t understand her callousness beyond her grief, even though the show makes a point of telling us that her pain is not the sole cause of her disagreeable personality, and Rashida Jones is great in the role. Sadly, story-wise, it feels like something is lacking.

‘Sunny’s True Stars Are Its Secondary Cast

In between this uneven dynamic, we get glimpses of other characters that are much more interesting and captivating than the show’s leads. Through flashbacks, we get to explore Masa’s own dealings with grief and solitude. To avoid spoilers, let’s just say that the episode that focuses on his backstory is a beautiful tale in and of itself. Masa’s mother, Noriko (Judy Ongg), is also a delight to watch. The contrast between her way of dealing with the loss of her son and grandson and Suzie’s own take on the tragedy is fascinating, a true essay on how one singular event can affect different people in different ways. But the true cherry on top of the cake is You’s Hime, a nasty villain who speaks in a deceptively sugary, childlike tone. Every second that You spends on screen is a second well-used, and her character is by far the one that gets the most development in the show.

Another element of Sunny that is beyond reproach is the show’s looks. To say that Sunny is all style and no substance would be wrong and mean, as the series does offer a delicate exploration of grief. However, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that Sunny’s style shines more than its substance. Every scene is gorgeously shot, every color vivid and depressing at the same time, with every robot a perfect candidate for a plushie or a toy. Sunny’s design isn’t by any means unique, pulling from the generations of round, white robots that came before her, but her emoji-like expressions are always on point, and it doesn’t take long for us to attribute them the same gravitas we would attribute a human face. Seriously, if you want something pretty to look at, Sunny is the show for you. If you want a funny comedy or an engaging drama or a nail-biting mystery… well, Sunny is still the show for you. Just keep your expectations in check.

Sunny Despite a lack of character development and weak resolution, Sunny charms through its visuals and its secondary cast.ProsAll the supporting characters are an absolute delight to watch, with You’s Hime in particular being an amazing villain.The mystery of Masa’s death is extremely engaging.The show offers a nice exploration of themes like guilt and grief.The visuals are nothing if not amazing. ConsThe dynamic between Sunny and Suzie can often be off-putting.Suzie doesn’t get the necessary development to be a good protagonist.

Sunny’s first two episodes are available to stream starting on July 10 on Apple TV+ in the U.S. New episodes come out on Wednesdays.

Watch on Apple TV+