The Not Quite Human television film series consists of American family-comedy science fiction films. The plot of the films center around the creation of a humanoid robot, who becomes a valued family member to its creator, while also learning to navigate the complicated circumstances of the human experience.
The films were met with mixed reception, citing their inferior quality to The Walt Disney Company's other science-fiction comedies (such as Flubber), while acknowledging that the films were created with the studio's attempt at a similar genre for contemporary audiences. Conversely, one critic praised the exploration of human experiences through the lens of science fiction.
When a scientific inventor named Dr. Jonas Carson creates an android teenager named Chip, the lives of he and his daughter Becky are changed forever. Hoping to integrate his invention into society seamlessly, Chip goes to school with Becky to interact with other people. Chip successfully begins to experience the day-to-day functions of a human life, while navigating the awkward and difficult activities as well. As Chip continues his high schooling activities, a former employer of Dr. Carson's discovers Chip's true nature and determines to pursue monetary gains through abducting him and reprograming his functions into a military program. Together, Dr. Carson and Becky seek to end his plans, with determination to keep Chip as the newest adopted member of their family.
After Chip successfully graduates from high school, he expresses interest in experiencing the next step of human life through college. Though his father Dr. Jonas Carson is apprehensive, Becky helps to support Chip's next ambition. Before leaving for college, the android downloads some new software that is intended to make his facial expressions more natural. After some of the university's experiences, he begins to miss his family as he has started to have some momentary malfunctions caused from glitches within his programming. Calling to notify his family, Dr. Carson encourages Chip to pursue his interests and so he determines ask out a girl he has been romantically interested in. Upon doing so, he is pleased to find out that she too is android named Roberta. She explains that her creator does not allow her to have free will. While helping to change her program, Roberta gains independence and the pair become a couple. After discovering that she is no longer responding to vocal commands, the people that developed her set in motion plans to retrieve her; while the Carsons also discover that the software Chip had downloaded, included malicious software that will over time completely destroy his internal systems. As the family races to find him before it's too late, Chip and Roberta are on the run from her creators, all while the androids search for a charging station before Roberta's power completely depletes erasing her memory.
Dr. Jonas Carson and his adopted android son named Chip attend a robotics convention, where Carson intends to present an inferior model to the world to showcase an advanced computer chip. When this robot begins to malfunction during the presentation, Dr. Carson accepts the ridicule and refuses Chip's suggestion that they reveal his true nature to protect his son. As they prepare to return home, Dr. Carson is abducted by a dubious individual and replaced with an android version. Though it is designed to function as Dr. Carson, Chip quickly discerns what has happened and reprograms the android to make its own choices. Finding an ally in the android, he renames it Bonus. Working together the two androids seek the help of local law enforcement to find and rescue Dr. Jonas Carson, who was taken by some wealthy competitive investors. While they begin to implement their rescue plan they also discover that another scientist had been developing a military war-android prototype, with the other scientists needing the assistance of Dr. Jonas to complete their creations, though he refuses to help them. When their military prototype android activates, Chip must use his brilliant programming functions to protect those around him and to rescue his father.