Humans: Episode 6

"If you power me down now, I will be unable to penetrate your wife."

It had to be that quote. There were plenty of potentials early on but when that one came along I knew it was The One.

Anyway, Humans. The revelations and the drama continue as per the last two episodes in what is turning out to be an interesting visually well-paced eight-parter, with no signs thus far of things dragging. Yes, there are times where the story has slowed down to explore theme and character, but there has been no padding. The writers deserve praise for that. 

They also deserve praise for this episode as a whole. The early scene with Fred, thus far a neglected character, both shows him to be a fascinating individual and raises the possibility that he, not Biska or Karen, may turn out to be the "killer synth". He's now on the loose. Max, too, gets a chance to shine, and die heroically to boot, as we examine his personality. He's a lovely bloke- loving, caring,  trusting, if not stupidly so, and with a faith in both humanity and, tentatively at least, God; the scene where he prays is quietly powerful. And yet he's the one who dies in an act of self sacrifice. What happens to Leo we will find out next week.

The repercussions of Joe's somewhat tapes act of infidelity are profound, yet they lead to a moving rapprochement of sorts between Laura and Mattie as we discover who the mysterious Tom was. It seems he was Laura's younger brother, who died as a child while his older sister was dying to look after him. Since then Laura has been dead to her awful mother, and Laura is terrified that the cycle is continuing with her and Mattie. I feel it won't, somehow.

The relationship between Biska and George continues to fascinate; Niska won't admit it, but heckles the old man. And we empathise with him, too, especially as we discover that George, after a stroke, has forgotten all about his late wife, relying on Odi to keep memories for him. It's clear he loves that poorly synth.

Niska, meanwhile, is five years younger than Mia and, it's implied, was used early on by David Elster as a concubine. Lovely. How very rapey. There's an obvious parallel here with Joe. 

Most dramatically, though, Mia makes a brief appearance to Laura and Mattie; the Anita personality keeps deleting her on the surface but she is always there in the nervous system, a metaphor for the subconscious. Interestingly, she says that she lost a son. This leads to Mattie and Laura making contact with a philosophical Max and a disconsolate and nearly dead Leo. At this point the revelations cone thick and fast, about David Elster's use of synth tech to resurrect his brain-dead son, of Nia being made as his surrogate mother, then Fred, Niska and Max, before his mysterious suicide. 

Mia agrees to stay with Laura and Mattie for the time being, but the increasingly creepy Hoe decides to snitch on Leo and Max, with the aforementioned tragic consequences. Is this the point where he stops being an empathetic character and just becomes pathetic?

Perhaps the most tragic character is Karen, though: after making love to her "favourite human", Pete, she all but declared her love for him and reveals her true nature, only to be horribly rejected by the appalled Pete, whose dislike of synths is well-established. This is yet another cliffhanger on an episode which is even more superb than usual. I can't wait until next time.

Humans: Episode 5

"She saved our son's life. And you're calling her a sex toy!"

Lots of revelations this week, some of them dramatic. It may be an episode of, essentially, exposition, but this is how you do it.

We begin with the meme of a "killer synth" having escaped into the public imagination, and we assume that it's Niska. Isn't that too obvious, though? Could it be Karen, for example? Interesting, if so: she and Pete are put on to the case.

We continue with a family debate about what to do with Anita. Joe, with a dirty secret to hide, wants rid of her, but no one else does, motivated by curiosity and not a little affection. Something is going to happen.

Leo sends Niska to George, where she'll be safe,which is awfully crazy newbie to because the two of them are both fascinating in their interaction and able to further the plot by exchanging information; for the first time it's confirmed that Niska was constructed by the mysterious David Elster.

Joe nearly succeeds in getting rid of Anita and his dirty secret, but she is rescued by the increasingly heroic Matilda and taken to Leo and Max, only for a devastated Leo to ultimately fail at restoring Mia from inside her. This is a crushing blow both to him and to us.

George experiences a fascinating, philosophical side to Niska, as he exposure that he was "lured over" from MIT, twenty-five years ago, to join David Elster in his work. But Elster, apparently, intended to pursue consciousness, hence his children. Even curiouser, Leo Elster was officially declared brain dead; this gives us a heavy hint as to how and why he now appears to be some sort of cyborg.

The big revelation finally arrives: Mattie notices that Anita's sex circuits have been activated. At first Leo is blamed, and is happy to take the rap for his dad, but Joe isn't quite as bad as all that and eventually confesses. This is very well written and played; Joe is arguably a rapist of sorts, but he is not played as a monster, just as a weak man. Tom Goodman-Hilll deserves a lot of praise here.

This leads, of course, to a lot of drama and to Laura throwing Joe out. Whatever the arguments about whether he's committed adultery or a type of masturbation with a sex toy, what really disgusts Laura is how rapey it all feels.

Pete, meanwhile, has his anti-synth feelings reinforced throughout the episode- he has, after all, been cuckolded by one. An interesting scene sees him attending an event on the streets, addressed by a fascinatingly persuasive anti-synth demagogue. All this is clearly leading up to something. As are many things. Humans still rocks.

Humans: Episode 3

"Dr. Millican! This is highly unsafe!"

Humans just keeps getting better and better. And that Kraftwerk-inspired theme tune is really growing on me.

Last week's cliffhanger is resolved, perhaps, with a bit of a cheat; Anita gets a reprieve by saving Toby's life, and by that point it's clear that no one else in her family agrees with her about taking Anita back. Nothing is resolved, though. Not for Anita and not within the family.

Probably the standout performances of the episode (taking Rebecca Chan's awfulness for granted, that is) are Rebecca Front as the tyrannical synth nurse Vera and Emily Berrington as the increasingly disturbed and upset Niska, for whom the world grows ever more nightmarish. It is a world like ours, but with little tell-tale signs of synth charging points. Immutable human nature is present and correct, but the synths are having a malign effect, an effect largely foreshadowed in Isaac Asimov's tales of the Spacers. But I doubt we'll be getting an Elijah Baley here. Instead we have an awkward and vaguely transgressive sexual tension between Joe and Anita as she asks him to inspect her naked body for damage. Is it mutual? Worse, with the addition of young Toby could we have a budding love triangle here?

Meanwhile, Niska's murder of that paedophile last episode is being investigated by detectives Pete and Karen, setting off a chain of events leading to the distinctly synth-phobic Pete losing his job. The whole thing is covered up; the public must not be told that the synths on which they rely could sometimes be killers. Now, though, Niska is deciding that, not only is she going to go rogue from human society, she also wants to dissociate herself from the mysterious Leo and become the ultimate lone wolf. Do I suspect some sort of one woman crusade against humans may be in the offing? Interestingly, she is seen reading The Ghost in the Machine by Arthur Koestler. Mrs Llamastrangler is reminded of Alpha from Dollhouse.

Niska gets an interesting series of scenes in which she allows a man to pick her up and follows him home, expecting him to be violent, lecherous and nasty and intending to kill him. Instead, he turns out to be nice, interested in her as a person and a devoted father. Instead of killing him, she simply leaves.

The episode's most tragic scene sees George, seemingly, saying a final goodbye to the malfunctioning Odi, who runs into the woods to die. Or so it seems. But it seems George has a past; he was deeply involved with the development of synths. Anita's past as Mia is briefly revealed during an abortive hack by Matilda, but she posts the results online. It seems that buried secrets from the past will soon be uncovered. One of them seems likely to be the mysterious "Tom", whom Laura does not wish to discuss. A lover? A dead child? Something else?

Humans is so good I just don't know how to praise it. I'm salivating at the thought of the five episodes to come.

Humans: Episode 1

"Those robots are the Singularity!"

It's prime time hard sci-if on Channel 4 courtesy of this remake of the Swedish original, with inevitable name checks for Asimov and Capek. Wisely, there's nothing other than the synths themselves (creepily lifelike robots) to indicate that this isn't the present day; excessive futurism would alienate us from a parable which has a lot to say about our lives; yes, we have robots (sort of) and the Singularity looms, but Capek's "robots", in the original Czech, meant "serfs". There are issues of class here, not only in the "human" rights of any sentient robot slaves, but in the lazy decadence that looms for their owners.

Narratively speaking, all this requires an Everyman (Tom Goodman-Hill's easygoing Joe), an everywoman (Karherine Parkinson's Laura, thus far the main character, with more time for work than family. She is, in effect, the primary audience POV character and, interestingly, is troubled by synths. There are also three, er, every children: Vanessa is the rebellious genius, Sophie is there to be young, cute and to illustrate certain parenting duties, and Toby thus far seems to be the token boy and little else. They're all well-rounded and likeable enough to get away with the fact that they are, essentially, archetypes. They are also our way in to the drama, with Joe purchasing a synth, Anita, to do the housework so that he and Laura can spend time together.

Anita- a standout superb performance from Gemma Chan, is at once creepy and captivating, and the family's getting used to her neatly gets the exposition out of the way. The language of IT is used to discuss then, with "primary users" and "secondary users". They are treated and thought of like household appliances, but wasn't the same true of Roman slaves?

There's no suggestion, at this point, that she might be sentient, but there are already uncomfortable issues about having a robot "slave"; as Matilda puts it, why should she spend years training to be a brain surgeon when a synth can do it so much better? The human race is being threatened with uselessness.

But that's not all: an early flashback sequence with the mysterious Leo (Colin "Merlin" Morgan) establishes that a select few synths, all mates of his, have achieved sentience, complete with feelings. We observe one of them ("Fred")being caught, in rather upsetting scenes, all the more redolent for the fact that Fred, a recaptured escaped slave, is portrayed by a black actor. Then there is Niska, a synth who works on a brothel and insists on feeling every degrading moment. Towards the end the camera lingers uncomfortably as she is taken from behind, silent.

Oh, and the flashback establishes that Anita was one of these sentiments, until she was kidnapped five weeks ago. We know, unlike the Hawkinses(?), that she is sentient, although this does not rob her closing comment about the moon of its impact; not only does she have a soul, but there is poetry in it.

We meet an old man, the irascible and American inventor Dr George Millican (William Hurt), who has become attached to his rather endearing synth, Obi, which helps him with his failing memory. It seems this synth is past its sell-by date, though, and must be consigned to the scrap heap like an old, broken fridge.

There are a lot of promising strands here in what already looks like one of the dramatic highlights of the year. Humans is already outstanding telly.