I literally spent all day answering parents questions just like this at the Seattle Robothon event www.robothon.org . With a stated interest in coding and electronics I would probably suggest the Parallax Boe-Bot approx $159, there is some mechanical assembly (screwdriver/pliers) but it has good coverage of electronics without soldering. Great step by step directions are available. A few other great starter robots: Pololu 3Pi ($110) for a focus on embedded C Programming, no electronics or mechanical skills required. For the home school types I suggest the Vex IQ - Superkit ($350) or Vex EDR Clawbot ($530), these kits include Classroom style documentation with Teachers guides. As you noted there are lots of options and these are just opinions, although these picks were easily agreed on by the key members of our committee, most of which had hands on building experience with these robots (including Lego Mindstorms $350).
I've had the subtitles turned on for about a year now and it wouldn't take more than 2 hours of watching broadcast TV with subtitles to realize this isn't a good solution. I've noticed the following.
1. Audio track is censored, Subtitles are not or Vice/Versa.
2. Actors Improvise the audio, the Subtitles are based on the script.
3. English Translations were done by the cheapest person possible so lots of partial words because they weren't clear and the transcriber didn't understand the context.
4. A recent show (2011) seemed to have a symbol every other character, I'm not sure if this is a Double-Byte Character issue, or just a bad translation.
5. Several shows such as American Idol and America's Got Talent display song lyrics and I'm not sure but I would think singing would require changes to the Algorithm.
I wish you well with the idea, but now you have a little more information.