EDITOR’S NOTE: The Companion aired on USA Up All Night on December 31, 1996.

Of all the Terminator clones, who knew that I’d be watching one with Bruce Greenwood — Pike from the later Star Trek movies — as a male companion named Geoffrey?

Romance novelist Gillian Tanner (Kathryn Harold, Raw Deal and Yes, Giorgio) has her agent Charlene (Talia Balsam) inform her that perhaps she should give up men — she just got cheated on by Bryan Cranston! — and get with the future. Yes, she is embracing the fourth point of the Church of Satan’s five-point program for Pentagonal Revisionism: Development and production of artificial human companions: The forbidden industry. An economic “godsend” which will allow everyone “power” over someone else. Polite, sophisticated, technologically feasible slavery. And the most profitable industry since T.V. and the computer.

At first, she’s cold to Geoffrey who is too perfect, too good looking and too willing to cater to her every need. It even puts off her friend Ron Cocheran (Brion James, cast as a reference to Blade Runner?*) and his way too young girlfriend Stacey (Joely Fisher). But when she allows Geoffrey to mess with his programming so that he can become more surprising and therefore her perfect man, Gillian learns that maybe she likes men that are bad for her whether they’re human or machine.

Director Gary Fieder would go on to make Things to Do In Denver When You’re Dead, Kiss the Girls and Don’t Say a Word. You can see he was meant for bigger things when you watch this. It was written by Ian Seeberg, who also wrote and narrated The Naked Peacock, a documentary on nudist camps, and the movie Temptation.

The cast also has James Karen, always a good thing, as the robot salesman, and Earl Boen — as a holographic talk show host — and he was in Terminator, which is a nice reminder that this is referencing that movie.* Plus you get a quick roles for Stacie Randall (Lyra from Trancers 4 and 5), Courtney Taylor (Mary Lou in Prom Night III: The Last Kiss), Brenda Leigh (Scanner Cop) and Bob the Goon himself, Tracey Walter.

It was shot by Rick Bota (who also worked with Fieder on Kiss the Girls), who directed a few movies of his own, including three Hellraiser movies: Hellseeker, Deader and Hellworld. He was also the director of photography for twenty-three episodes of Tales from the Crypt, House On Haunted Hill and Valentine.

The special effects at the end — Scott Wheeler (300, Big Fish, Us, The Mangler, Demon Wind and so many more movies — look really good. Understated and very T800-like, but for a TV movie, it looks great. I had no expectations of The Companion when it started and I ended up really liking it. It feels like the kind of movie that a studio would make today and here it is, a low budget made-fot-TV movie that played on USA.

*Kind words to Matty Budrewicz from the incredible The Schlock Pit site for pointing this out.

You can watch this on YouTube.