The Sex Robots Are Coming review – Who'd have thought they'd have a soft Scottish accent?

There are moments of hilarity in this fascinating and bleak documentary, which explored just how close humans and machines are going to get

If you've ever wondered what a life-sized mechanical sex toy called Harmony looks like reciting the lyrics to Thriller with all the passion of Alexa ordering the shopping, then The Sex Robots Are Coming (Channel 4) has got it covered. This fascinatingly bleak documentary explored the question of just how close humans and machines are going to get, and looks at the burgeoning sex robot industry, which one day hopes to create life-like rubber women who will talk and show pre-programmed emotions, but only if they are more obedient, passive and pliable than the irritatingly free-willed real thing.

This was by turns hilarious and upsetting, as perplexing as it was educational. The Californian RealDoll company is on a quest to make a realistic sex robot. It already sells RealDolls for people to have their wicked way with, and though it has an eye-watering male model, 80% of customers want a female doll. The company's founder, Matt McMullan, explains that he initially conceived of the project as art. Mmmhmm. And the customers only want a life-sized doll with a realistic vagina, so they can put dresses on it and do its makeup.