Not to be confused with the "Mann vs. Machine" game mode on Team Fortress 2.
Mann & Machine features examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The show takes place in "the near future." 1995 and 1997 are both mentioned as previous years.
- Alliterative Name: Eve Edison.
- Analogy Backfire: In "Water, Water Everywhere," Mann tells Eve, "The course of one's life is about as predictable as the weather." Eve replies, "My point precisely. With modern technology, one can predict meteorological conditions with amazing precision."
- Androids and Detectives: Not only Eve, but also Mann's previous partner, Warner. Warner was a lot less sophisticated than Eve. He drove Mann crazy and almost got him killed, and after he is destroyed in a gunfight, Mann requests a human partner. He isn't happy to find that Eve is a robot, too.
- Artificial Meat: According to "No Pain, No Gain," hot dogs haven't technically counted as meat since 1995.
- Benevolent Boss: Despite being a ruthless and prolific organ-stealing serial killer, Richards from "No Pain, No Gain" appeared to be a surprisingly nice boss, getting along so well with his henchmen that, during his escape, he actually stops to check and see if one who was knocked out was still alive and alright.
- Bullet Time: Used in the climax of most episodes.
- Dating Service Disaster: In "The Dating Game," Eve signs up for a dating service because three of its female users have been murdered. Before she finds the culprit, one of the suspects tries to rape her. She easily fights him off, but is still shaken by the experience.
- Delivery Guy Infiltration: Eve rescues a hostage by dressing as a pizza delivery girl.
- Drives Like Crazy: Mann accuses Eve of this.Eve: I constantly compute velocity, traction, and road conditions, and make turns at optimal speed. Sometimes that means slowing down and sometimes it doesn't.
Mann: Tell that to the jogger you nearly ran over.
Eve: He was crossing against the light, Mann. I can hardly be expected to include disregard for the law in my calculations. - Electrified Bathtub: The victims in "The Dating Game" were all killed this way. During the climax, the villain tries to push Eve into an electrified swimming pool.
- Electronic Eyes: Eve can remove her eyes from her skull and attach them to a wall, allowing them to serve as hidden cameras that transmit wirelessly. She has enough spares that she can afford to leave a few lying around.
- Fingertip Drug Analysis: In "Billion Dollar Baby," Eve tastes a pile of white powder and announces, "It's baby powder!"
- Going to the Store: In "Truth or Consequences," Eve becomes jealous of an attractive female witness she and Mann are guarding. To see if Mann is romantically interested in the witness, she takes advice from the witness's young daughter: she announces that she's going to the all-night supermarket, waits outside for twenty seconds, then goes back inside to get her purse. She sees Mann and the witness holding hands and leaning into each other.
- Identity Amnesia: The villains of "Truth or Consequences" have ray guns that can wipe someone's memory. They use them mostly as a tidy way of silencing a witness.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: Mann has to explain why Eve shouldn't change her clothes in front of him.
- Insane Equals Violent: "Mann's Fate" has Lomax, aka the Laughing Bomber. He spent eight years locked up before being "cured" by a medication pump in his arm; as soon as he got free, he ripped the pump out and went back to a life of crime. His main symptom seems to be a fondness for jokes and Criminal Mind Games.
- Interrupted Bath: At the beginning of "Water, Water Everywhere," Mann tries to take a shower, but is interrupted first by a phone call from Captain Claghorn and then by a reporter knocking at his door. Los Angeles is having a years-long drought, so Mann's water shuts off before he can finish, and he ends up having to rinse the soap out of his hair with bottled water.
- Janitor Impersonation Infiltration: In "Mann's Fate," a bomber enters Mann's house dressed as a technician he murdered and hooks a bomb up to the meter. Mann and Eve realize what happened and rush to the house on time to save Mann's dog.
- Literal-Minded: Eve is better with metaphors than most fictional robots, but she still has trouble sometimes.Mann: If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.
Eve: I don't see what ducks have to do with anything. - Organ Theft: "No Pain, No Gain" involves a series of dead bodies that have washed up on the beach with their organs harvested and replaced with gravel.
- Parents for a Day: In "Billion Dollar Baby," Mann and Eve rescue a baby from people who planned to sell him. They have to look after him for a few days while his parents are tracked down. In the meantime, Eve develops maternal feelings for the baby.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Mann is an abrasive Cowboy Cop. Eve is serious, polite, and by-the-book.
- Super-Senses: Eve has these. She can tell if a car needs an oil change by the smell of its exhaust.
- The Teaser: Most episodes open with a short scene shot from Eve's perspective before the Title Sequence.
- Three Stooges Shout-Out: In one episode, Eve attempts to learn about human behavior by watching Three Stooges shorts.
- Undercover as Lovers: In "No Pain, No Gain," Eve and Mann go undercover as a husband and wife trying to buy a testicle from organ thieves.
- Womanchild: Eve is intellectually brilliant, but she has an emotional age of seven. The scientists hope that by being partnered with Mann, she'll be able to experience the full range of human emotions so her emotional age can catch up with her appearance.
- Word Association Test: Eve takes one when signing up for a dating service in "The Dating Game." Her results are so eccentric ("Naughty"—>"Pine," "Pulsating"—>"Sphygmomanometer," "Sperm"—>"Moby-Dick") that the service can't find a single match.
- Zipping Up the Bodybag: In "No Pain, No Gain," Captain Claghorn flips a sheet over a dead body's face.
