San Francisco-based forensic neuropsychiatrist Eldon Chance reluctantly gets sucked into a violent and dangerous world of mistaken identity, police corruption and mental illness.

Richard Martin buys a gift, a new NDR-114 robot. The product is named Andrew by the youngest of the family's children. "Bicentennial Man" follows the life and times of Andrew, a robot purchased as a household appliance programmed to perform menial tasks. As Andrew begins to experience emotions and creative thought, the Martin family soon discovers they don't have an ordinary robot.