My Life as a Teenage Robot/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • In the episode "Histrionics" Jenny and the boys are trapped in a (seemingly) deserted island and she's running out of power. She says once her auxiliary power runs out she's "just a 600 pound paperweight". Okay...except in one episode a bunch of kindergarteners picked her up body-surfing style and Brad carried her single-handedly in another.
    • I think she was just being sarcastic like "Oh nooo, I'm too heavy to carry. Do go on without me!!"
    • It could be more that, anytime anyone picks her up, she's helping them with unseen thrusters or such. She's initially breaking chairs with her weight, but learns how to sit on them without breaking them (ie: she's not actually sitting on them - you could remove the chair and she'd still be in the same position).
      • Related - Dr. Wakeman probably had to reinforce the whole house so Jenny wouldn't tear it apart every day.
      • That episode with Brad... I suppose you're referring to the one where Melody Locus helped him to escape with Jenny?
        • If that is the case, then he was far from single-handedly carrying her. It was already established that he couldn't lift her without help, and it was outright shown that Melody was helping him along the whole way.
  • Why is Dr. Wakeman always complaining about Jenny wanting to be like other teenagers when she intentionally made her that way?
    • A few good reasons, really. One notable thing is that Wakeman clearly does see her as an actual daughter, albeit one not as focused as she'd like her to be. As for why she doesn't modify her AI a bit, I guess it's just since that would be like a totally new person kind of. Related, a robot who thinks like an actual person would be much more efficient when coming up with unconventional solutions to trouble than one coldly mechanical, so maybe Wakeman figured it was worth the trade off.
    • It would also give her a sense of reason, and take care of those pesky paradoxes.
    • Meh. Typical mom?
    • Because having a parent who complains about your decisions is something normal teenagers have? So Dr. Wakeman is supporting her daughter's dreams by complaining about them? Fridge Heartwarming, or Logic Bomb?
  • Is Jenny's town ever given a name? At all?
    • You meant town Tremorton?
    • Apparently you need to watch more episodes.
  • I am a die-hard fan of the show. Seriously. But there's one episode in particular that really, truly irks me. That episode is "Voyage to the Planet of the Bikers" from Season Three. The synopsis goes a little something like this; Letta and the Space Bikers fool around with Jenny and permanently weld her into a motorcycle. Instead of going to her mother for help (she says something about her 'warranty'), she decides to take Tuck with her to the Bikers' homeworld...where it's revealed that they're actually schoolteachers and far from the malicious bikers as we've come to know them. Jenny demands that they fix her, but they laugh it off some more; this results in Jenny exposing their biker identities to the entire town, ruining their lives. After she threatens to expose their schoolteacher identities to other villains, they finally agree to fix her.
    • First of all, her mother is far from the only person that can fix her. Sure, getting Sheldon to rearrange her anatomy may be a little embarrassing, but at the very least it would work. Plus, whatever happened to the biker shop that gave her the bitchin' hot rod makeover? Those guys would have gladly helped her out.
    • Second - though this is entirely subjective, depending on your view of the Space Bikers - Jenny's solution is a tad overblown. In the scant few seconds shown of the bikers in their teacher jobs, it's made very clear that they are loved by the community and that they are very good at what they do; they just come to Earth to "blow off steam". To me, it seems that the fact that they are valuable members of society on another planet is a far, far better thing than being criminal nuisances on Earth; if anytihng, Jenny's exposing them has made the problem even worse, because now they're doomed to be bikers for the rest of their lives. They've lost the respect of an entire town that they worked hard to deserve. Sure, what they did to Jenny was bad and they were unrepentant about it, but there were probably other solutions to the problem, in my honest opinion.
      • Their "relaxation" involves massive property damage, probable injuries, and generally criminal behaviour. They rack up indictable offences at a frightening rate every time they show up; why shouldn't they be called to account?
  • Why does Dr. Wakeman dislike the other XJs so much, to the point that she forces them to stay in the basement ('Sister Sledgehammer') and refuses to turn them on to help in 'Escape from Cluster Prime?'
    • They are considered "failed models" and Dr. Wakeman probably thinks they'll blow up at the slightest provocation. She doesn't hate them, she just thinks Jenny is more competent. And less glitchy. Seriously, none of those girls have the ability to focus properly on anything for any length of time.
      • She does seem to gradually soften towards them, however; in later episodes, she's much more open to using them in times of need. She probably doesn't want to have to look after all nine robots at once. (After all, Jenny is more than enough trouble on her own).
  • The entire premise of the show deeply bothers me. Nora Wakeman constantly complains about Jenny not doing her job well enough and Jenny often screws up big time due to her emotions and teenager tendencies getting in the way. An unstable, emotional teenager wouldn't be a very good hero, as her social life will often get in the way. If Wakeman wanted a daughter so much, why didn't she make two separate robots: a normal Ridiculously Human Robot daughter with the mindset of a teenager, and a super powerful battle robot with an adult mindset as hero? Nora would then have a daughter and a more efficient robotic hero. Jenny gets to live a normal life and the world has a more reliable hero. Everyone wins.
  • Jenny often fails tests or has trouble at school. She's a robot. She can just download all the information and knowledge she'll ever need right away. She wouldn't even need to go to school, and can give herself intelligence rivaling that of Wakeman herself. It'd certainly help Jenny do her job better. Jenny has shown that she can download information, so why hasn't she done this already?
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/My_Life_as_a_Teenage_Robot/Headscratchers?oldid=1498872"