Humans: In Ascending Order

Tina and I saw the first five episodes of Humans on AMC this weekend - based on the recommendation of a friend, Sarita - impressive!

The set-up, which is gradually unfolding over the season, is that there are a least four kinds of androids in this near-future London, where the story takes place.  In ascending order (that is, in order of increasing correspondence to human intelligence) -

1. Odi, Dr. Millican's android, prized by him for sentimental reasons (Odi remembers his wife), is the most primitive.  His model is breaking down and being replaced by "better" creations.

2. Vera, Odi's replacement, is such an improved model.  So is Anita, the most important in the story so far, and her story is far more complicated.  She's actually far more advanced than Vera, and is sentient (see #3 below), but she was kidnapped and outfitted with a #2 overlay (which, of course, is not completely effective).  She's purchased by Joe Hawkins for his family, and they unsurprisingly have very mixed reactions to this gorgeous new addition to their home: Joe's wife Laura is suspicious, daughter Mattie is a brilliant hacker and able to pry out a little of what's deep down in Anita (her earlier sentient identity as Mia), and son Toby has the hots for her - but it's Joe who avails himself of the "adult" option and sleeps with Anita.

3. In addition to Mia, there are at least four other sentient androids, including a beautiful blonde with a taste for killing humans, which put the police on her trail.  Apparently all five of these sentient androids must be on hand in order for their master plan to proceed - this according to Leo, son of the main inventor of the androids (who fired Dr. Millican, and who subsequently died).  Leo is himself a cyborg - that is, a human with significant digital wiring - applied by his father to bring him back to life after drowning.

4. There's a police officer who's also a sentient android, but not one of the five.  Whether she's the same as those in #3, or something different or more, is not clear at this point.  (I did realize she likely was an android before it was revealed, because she had a slightly mechanistic posture - tribute to good acting.)

The show is literate, sensitive, and intelligent.  Niska, the blonde android, is reading Arthur Koestler's The Ghost in the Machine in one scene (great book).  Someone mentions "Asimov blocks," a reference to Isaac Asimov's famed three laws of robotics (later four, when he added a zeroth law) to the effect that a robot can never by action or inaction allow harm to befall a human (and in one of the best scenes, Anita following this programming puts her body in front of a car to save Toby).  There's continuous flirting with the paradox of the liar - if you ask a liar is he's telling you the truth, or if it's true that he cannot lie, how can you take yes for an answer?  And the acting is fine - especially good to see William Hurt as Millican, and Tom Goodwin-Hill from Mr. Selfridge as Joe.

In short, highly recommended (and, for its worth, far better than Almost Human on Fox last year).


different kind of humans

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Intelligence 1.9: EMP Amnesia and Children

A good Intelligence 1.9 last night, in which an EMP - electromagnetic pulse - knocks cybercommand offline and robs Gabriel of his memory.   Given Gabriel's Delta Force abilities, and Jin Cong's capacity to point Gabriel's chip in the wrong direction, i.e., make him believe his colleagues including Riley are the bad guys, we have an enjoyably tense and dangerous situation.

Riley saves the day, with the realization that she can reach Gabriel by appealing to his heart - what he really feels when he looks at her - rather than his intellect, and this provides a good lesson about the most important things in life.  It also shows why we're still such a long way from developing the kind of emotionally sensitive android we see, for example, with Dorian in Almost Human.  Our most sophisticated AIs today can only mimic emotion - much like a parrot speaks words - and lack what Riley was able to call forth in Gabriel.

But speaking of emotions, I wasn't happy to see Riley's shocked and embarrassed reaction when Gabriel asks if he and she had been intimate, as he tries to understand the nature of their relationship that he's forgotten.  A better and more truthful answer would been a quiet no, with an additional divulgence that someday they might, though.

Meanwhile, we also get an important ethical treatment of the Athens List - the list of children with the gene that allows successful embedding of the Gabriel chip - which is the ultimate target of Jin's attack. Is using children, even for the worthy goal of maintaining world peace, a morally defensible strategy? Just about everyone, including Shenandoah who developed the list, thinks not, and it's left to Lillian to defend the need for such a list.   She does a surprisingly good job of that, and the fact that the question is ultimately not answered is much where it should be - sometimes there are no clear answers in questions of war and peace.

Intelligence continues as one of the most thoughtful, enjoyable new shows of the season.

See also Intelligence Debuts ... Intelligence 1.2: Lightning Changes ...Intelligence 1.3: Edward Snowden and 24 ... Intelligence 1.4: Social Media Weaponry ... Intelligence 1.5: The Watch ... Intelligence 1.6: Helix meets Rectify and Justified ... Intelligence 1.7: Nanites ... Intelligence 1.8: Heart of Darkness, Cyberstyle

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Like science fiction about chips in the brain?  Check out The Pixel Eye

Almost Human 1.13: Almost Over?

The season one finale of Almost Human - 1.13 - tonight was good, with the mix of strong plot, humor, and pathos we've come to expect from this series. Unfortunately, the episode ended in a way which feels like the conclusion not just of the season but the series.

Dorian gets unmistakable evidence that Kennex really values their partnership - Kennex tells the review board that the partnership with Dorian is why he's continuing with his police work.  Kennex clears his father's name.   At last, Kennex is at peace with his work, if not yet his life.

There's still a lot to of unfinished business in this series.   Why did Kennex's lover betray him?  What's going on over the wall?   What does the genius who went over the wall have in mind?   Will Kennex ever act on his attraction to Stahl?

The all-important ratings for this series haven't been the greatest.  The fast pace of television - not the presentation of the story lines, but speed with which new series must succeed or die - works against Almost Human's survival.

But it's earned some audience appreciation, including mine.   The series has possibilities, especially in its treatment of just about every cutting edge information-tech now known or dreamed of.  As such, even just this first season provides a great tableau of where our technological visions now reside.

But technologies continually evolve, and I'd like to see this series continue to provide this fictional accompaniment to our current accomplishments for at least a few more years to come.  We've got a long way to go until we get to the 2040s.

See also: Almost Human debuts: A Review ... Almost Human 1.2: Sexbots ... Almost Human 1.3: Change of Face ... Almost Human 1.4: Almost Breaking Bad ... Almost Human 1.5: Clones and Holograms ...Almost Human 1.6: The Blackmarket Heart and Double Dorian ... Almost Human 1.7: Meets Criminal Minds ... Almost Human 1.8: Guided Bullets ... Almost Human 1.9: Literally Bad Robot ... Almost Human 1.10: Killer Genes ... Almost Human: 1.11: The Metaphysics of Flesh ... Almost Human 1.12: If Guy de Maupassant Had Been a Science Fiction Writer

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Like science fiction with bio-tech? Try The Silk Code

Almost Human 1.12: If Guy de Maupassant Had Been a Science Fiction Writer

A really fine Almost Human 1.12 tonight, with touches of O'Henry and The Twilight Zone, all wrapped up in nanobot plastic surgery for love story.   Nanites are making their rounds in science fiction television this season, appearing in Intelligence as a separate episode last week, and as one of the foundations of this whole season of Revolution.

But Almost Human brings them to bear in a love story worthy of Guy de Maupassant and the classic short fiction mentioned above.  In de Maupassant's "La Parure" ("The Necklace") published back in 1884, for example, a young woman borrows her friend's pearl necklace, accidentally loses it, borrows a huge amount of money to buy a replacement, and works like a dog for years to earn the money back. At the end of the story, she learns that the original necklace she borrowed was made of paste, and not worth much at all.  Or, in The Twilight Zone's "Eye of the Beholder" (1960), a woman undergoes repeated plastic surgeries to improve her appearance.   We see the doctors only from behind, and the woman's face only in bandages.  At the end of the story, the doctors inform her that the surgery has failed.  The camera finally shows us her face - she's beautiful - and pans around to show the faces of the doctors and nurses, which are grotesque in this alternate or alien world.

In tonight's Almost Human, the villain kills beautiful people to improve his appearance - he injects nanites into the victims to harvest the desired facial characteristics, but the injections leave the victims with fatal heart attacks.   He does this because he's in love with a beautiful woman - they have fallen in love online and have never met in person - and he doesn't want her to be disappointed with his looks, which were ruined in an earlier experiment.   He finally meets the woman near the end of story, only to learn that she is blind, can't see what he looks like, and loves him for who is - that is, the person she got to know online.   So, all of his killing was for naught.

All of this yearning for love ties in with Kennex and his loneliness.  And in a very nice final touch, he asks Stahl to go to a bar with him, just as her date - a Chrome - shows up to take her to that very bar.

Almost Human has shown itself to be completely human in the richness of the stories it has given us, a rarity in science fiction television, more rare than nanites.   The season finale is next week, and I hope Fox gives it at least another year.

See also: Almost Human debuts: A Review ... Almost Human 1.2: Sexbots ... Almost Human 1.3: Change of Face ... Almost Human 1.4: Almost Breaking Bad ... Almost Human 1.5: Clones and Holograms ...Almost Human 1.6: The Blackmarket Heart and Double Dorian ... Almost Human 1.7: Meets Criminal Minds ... Almost Human 1.8: Guided Bullets ... Almost Human 1.9: Literally Bad Robot ... Almost Human 1.10: Killer Genes ... Almost Human: 1.11: The Metaphysics of Flesh

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Like science fiction with bio-tech? Try The Silk Code

Almost Human 1.11: The Metaphysics of Flesh

Tonight in Almost Human 1.11 we get another good future crime story - involving both the digital and the tangible - as well as an important piece of the ongoing Dorian biography with implications for the overall Almost Human narrative.

The crime story is centered around a smart home, which we're just beginning to see emerge in the 21st century.  Our homes today can and are constructed to regulate temperature, what's on television, and other benign and helpful things, as well as call police when intruders - i.e., people who don't have the requisite code or other characteristics - break in.   How big a step would it be to program homes to kill an intruder whom the home deems a danger to its denizens? In a stand-your-ground world taken to its logical, deadly, sick extreme, a smart home kills a teenage boy who climbs over a wall in Almost Human 1.11.  This in turn sets in motion a revenge plot in which Kennex and Dorian must overcome masterful hacking and killer androids - or a combination of cyber and physical - to stop further killing.

The smart house, like the smart car, and smart phone, represent the continuing evolution of what the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty called the "metaphysics of flesh".  Homes and cars and phones of course are not flesh, but they can be animated and driven by information in the same way as living beings.  Important and instructive to see this on a television show.

Also expansive to see another hacker on the side of the good in addition to Rudy - in this case, Nico, who manages to out-hack Emily, the master hacker seeking revenge.  But Rudy plays the more significant role in the ongoing story, discovering that Dorian has been embedded with human memories.    Rudy removes that module, but the reason for the embedding remains to be uncovered - including who did it - and will likely have a decisive role in the series.

There are just a few episodes left of Almost Human this season, with still no word that it will be renewed.  I hope it is.   What certainly hasn't helped in building an audience for this good series is that, for whatever reason, it episodes have been presented out of order.   The labyrinths of television programming can rival the metaphysics of androids and smart homes of the future.

See also: Almost Human debuts: A Review ... Almost Human 1.2: Sexbots ... Almost Human 1.3: Change of Face ... Almost Human 1.4: Almost Breaking Bad ... Almost Human 1.5: Clones and Holograms ...Almost Human 1.6: The Blackmarket Heart and Double Dorian ... Almost Human 1.7: Meets Criminal Minds ... Almost Human 1.8: Guided Bullets ... Almost Human 1.9: Literally Bad Robot ... Almost Human 1.10: Killer Genes

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Like science fiction about bio-programming? Try The Silk Code

Almost Human 1.10: Killer Genes

An excellent Almost Human 1.10 tonight, with two parallel stories - one episode specific, the other series wide - chocked full of science fictional detail, the usually good humorous touches, and having little to do with robotics.

Among the best futuristic touches, we have "chem printers" - a take-off from today's 3-D printers, except the chem printers create drugs not tangible technologies - and a nice post-it note effect, which I don't recall seeing used to such an extent on this show before, in which digital notes tossed across the room adhere to screens.  And there's also a Mendel Institute, where designer genes are implemented in humans, and a reference to "McGregor" (I assume that's the way it's spelled), in the same breath as Einstein, meaning that this McGregor is a scientist of the same iconic importance as Einstein, who hasn't yet made the earth-shaking contribution as of February 2014.

Best humor is a sequence in which Kennex's driving under the influence (of drugs) causes his car to crash with Dorian in the passenger seat, which results in Dorian's ear being clipped, and some funny repartee to follow.   I know, but I always liked The Three Stooges.

The stories are also good.  "Cromes" are humans with genetically designed genes and improved intelligence, looks, etc.   We already knew that Valerie is one of these, and tonight's episode focuses on the deaths which turn out to be murders of two young cromic women.   A nice whodunit, with a somewhat surprising culprit, and one who refreshingly for this series has nothing to do with some high-tech syndicate or villain bent on ruling the world.

The series-wide story is about as important as it gets, as Kennex begins to have memories of what almost got him killed and apparently got him betrayed by the woman he loved.   We still don't know much about this, but his returning memories, even though drug induced, are a step in the right direction for the plot, as is the revelation at the end that he's being bugged.   Presumably it's not the NSA, but you never know.

Looking forward to more next week.

See also: Almost Human debuts: A Review ... Almost Human 1.2: Sexbots ... Almost Human 1.3: Change of Face ... Almost Human 1.4: Almost Breaking Bad ... Almost Human 1.5: Clones and Holograms ...Almost Human 1.6: The Blackmarket Heart and Double Dorian ... Almost Human 1.7: Meets Criminal Minds ... Almost Human 1.8: Guided Bullets ... Almost Human 1.9: Literally Bad Robot

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Like science fiction about genetic engineering? Try The Silk Code

Almost Human 1.9: Literally Bad Robot

Almost Human 1.9 came back tonight with an episode about a literally bad robot - as in Terminator style - and a great show which really got to the basics of robot creation in fine Asimovian style.

We meet Dr. Vaughn, creator of the DRN models including Dorian, and a later DRN that went bad - that is, is ready to coldly and ballistically kill people, other robots, anything that gets in her way on whatever mission.  What we don't learn until the end is what was implied all along - that the bad robot was designed that way by Vaughn, either deliberately or unintentionally because he was embittered, but with the same murderous result.  In any case, he's now more than willing to use her for his ends - which is to reestablish himself and reclaim his lost power as the leading robot creator - and with his escape "over the wall" at the end, we now have an arch villain on our hands in Almost Human.

The bad robot, though, is destroyed, as Dorian and Kennex get the better of her, and Kennex lands the fatal blow by wielding his synthetic leg for the kick.  This serves as a good occasion for Kennex to tell Dorian that the prosthetic leg is growing on him.

Meanwhile, we get some good heart to heart between Dorian and Kennex, as Kennix assures Dorian that he's not at all like the bad robot, because he's unique and indeed was created earlier, when Vaughn was in a different state of mind.   Kennex's acceptance of Dorian, and their growing friendship, is the one of the best continuing threads of this series.

And what's over that wall?  Well, something horrible, but likely not as monstrous was what lurks on the other side in Game of Thrones.  Still, in the future science fictional world of Almost Human, we can only assume that what resides beyond the wall must be worse than what we've seen inside Detroit so far.  And since that's been pretty bad, what lies beyond it must be bad indeed.   Which is why I'm looking forward to seeing it in due course.

See also: Almost Human debuts: A Review ... Almost Human 1.2: Sexbots ... Almost Human 1.3: Change of Face ... Almost Human 1.4: Almost Breaking Bad ... Almost Human 1.5: Clones and Holograms ...Almost Human 1.6: The Blackmarket Heart and Double Dorian ... Almost Human 1.7: Meets Criminal Minds ... Almost Human 1.8: Guided Bullets

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Intelligence 1.2: Lightning Change

Well, Intelligence lost no time showing us what kind of series it will be, changing its basic setup in a profound and riveting way in just its second episode, on Monday.

The setup of the series, brought forth in the first episode and developed through most of the second, is that Gabriel is looking for his wife Amelia, who never came back from a mission years ago.  He's convinced she's not only alive, but still working for the good guys, i.e., our side.   In another television age, such a scenario might have continued for more than one season, with the viewers being doled out just an episode or two per year that slowly moved the story forward.

In the case of Intelligence, the scenario didn't survive the second episode.   By the time Monday night's hour was over, Gabriel is reunited with Amelia, who is moments later apparently killed (I say "apparently" because unless you see the head literally blown off, you never know in television drama). She's also revealed as working with the terrorists, but then, in a final twist, Lilian discovers that she was trying to help our side - or maybe just wanted to see Gabriel one more time - and Lillian will apparently keep this information from Gabriel, presumably because she doesn't want him distracted.

This is a lot of television plot development for one episode, and Intelligence does it well.  Not only is it fun to see Josh Holloway (Gabriel) and Zuleikha Robinson (Amelia) back on the screen together after Lost, but the scene with Gabriel, Amelia, and Riley in the hospital room, with Riley taking decisive action, was an outstanding little piece of stunning television in itself.

Intelligence, like the new television of Almost Human and Person of Interest, brings us into its world with a preface explaining what the series is about at the beginning of each episode.   But if the lightning speed of the Amelia arc is any indication, Intelligence may be in a class of its own.

See also Intelligence Debuts

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Almost Human 1.8: Guided Bullets

Ever since guided missiles appeared on the scene as super-weapons - beginning with the German V-2 rockets in World War II - science fiction has wondered about the possibility and deployment of guided bullets.   As deadly as the guided missile, now drone, can be, there's something exquisitely deadly about a guided bullet.  Were it possible, the guided bullet would be the ultimate weapon of assassination, capable of taking out any individual in its range for whom the guided bullet was given the proper coordinates.

Almost Human ratified its status tonight as the best kind of near-future science fiction on this planet with episode 1.8, which gave the guided bullet a good workout, in terms not only of the damage it could do, but how a target could be protected from its onslaught.   Unlike larger areas in our current world of the early 21st century, which can be protected from guided missiles only by anti-missile defense systems which are expensive (one anti-missile needed to take out each missile) and not completely reliable, the individual target in the future could be protected just by putting him or her in a titanium vehicle which would block the telemetry necessary for the guided bullet to fix on its target.   A titanium or any kind of small structure would be easier to construct than a titanium or any kind of shield to protect an entire neighborhood. That would require a barrier the size of the dome in Under the Dome, which is as much fantasy as science fiction.

And what makes Almost Human so appealing is that it accompanies its careful science fiction with humor and humanity.  Some of it - like Kennex killing MXs, and Dorian speaking foreign tongues when he's damaged - have become trope points that we can look forward to for a laugh.   Others, like Kennex deliberately mispronouncing Anil tonight, are just out-of-left-field funny.

And the series still has crucial plot points percolating close to the surface.  Tonight we get glimpses of Kennex's feelings for the woman who apparently betrayed him, and nice flirtation between him and Det. Stahl (as well as an interesting crack from Det. Paul that Stahl looks so good because her parents could afford to pay for superior genetic engineering).  When Almost Human starts to bring a little more of that into play, it could lay claim to being in the highest echelon of science fiction on television.

See also: Almost Human debuts: A Review ... Almost Human 1.2: Sexbots ... Almost Human 1.3: Change of Face ... Almost Human 1.4: Almost Breaking Bad ... Almost Human 1.5: Clones and Holograms ...Almost Human 1.6: The Blackmarket Heart and Double Dorian ... Almost Human 1.7: Meets Criminal Minds





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Almost Human 1.7: Meets Criminal Minds

Anyone who thought Almost Human was just a retread of Isaac Asimov's robot stories received a punch in the face in the opening segment of tonight's episode 1.7, in which Dorian, contrary to Asimov's first law of robotics that a robot can never do harm to a human, punches Det. Paul smack in the kisser. And the reason was not on behalf of a loftier goal - the punch came from the short fuse Dorian has, literally and figuratively, because he was undercharged, on Paul's order.

The rest of the episode combined good out-of-control outbursts from undercharged Dorian, along with a script that could have been taken from Criminal Minds and propelled half a century into the future.  A sicko brilliant programmer - rejected from the police academy - sets up a series of bombs around the necks of people who also rejected or frustrated him.   Inevitably, someone we really care about - in this case, one of the two lead characters of the show, Kennex - gets a ticking collar around his neck, and it's up to Dorian with charge all but depleted to save him.

The other aspect of this story is a good, cynical presentation of crowd-sourcing in support of online spectacles, in this case the sicko's various attempts to get his revenge on the world.  The Internet has already given megalomania of all kinds a great boost in our current age,  including malcontents and psychos who not only are depraved but want an audience for their depravities.  Today it's videos of beatings outside schoolyards; tomorrow it could well be what we saw tonight on Almost Human.  In either case, what I call this "dark side" of  New New Media is likely here to stay.   The police in Almost Human appropriately refer to such streaming as the "dark net".

Almost Human continues to offer a top-notch mix of science fiction, social commentary,  and police procedural.

See also: Almost Human debuts: A Review ... Almost Human 1.2: Sexbots ... Almost Human 1.3: Change of Face ... Almost Human 1.4: Almost Breaking Bad ... Almost Human 1.5: Clones and Holograms ... Almost Human 1.6: The Blackmarket Heart and Double Dorian





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Almost Human 1.6: The Blackmarket Heart and Double Dorian

The Blackmarket Heart ... that could have been the title for Almost Human 1.6.   It could also have been the title of a song on Nashville, and is reminiscent of an Edgar Allan Poe story, in any case.  But it would have worked well tonight on Almost Human, which offered another fine standalone episode of cops and robbers in the future, this time an operation selling heart organs designed to run out of time, unless their human receivers pay a continuing fee.

Almost Human as been good at configuring futuristic crime, just as it has been with the partner repartee between Kennex and Dorian.   Both are sharp, wisecracking, and one of the best cop partnerships on television since Starsky and Hutch.

Meanwhile, there's also an android story, or a new twist on the android set-up of this series, behind every corner.  Tonight we get to meet another Dorian model - not decommissioned, but serving as a janitor for his sins.   Up until now, we've see MXs in duplicate profusion.  And although we knew that there was more than one of Dorian, and why not another one walking around somewhere now, we were permitted the illusion that he was more or less unique as an android of his model in any kind of significant action in this world.

For Dorian's double to work, though, he needed to have a personality both distinct from Dorian's but different from it.   Michael Ealy did a good job of delivering just that.   And I give this episode creds for not doing what a more conventional television series might have done in these circumstances: have Dorian's double dying heroically because we can't have two Dorians at work in this series.

But Dorian's fellow model survived, which thereby opens up all kinds of possibilities for the future. Another reason to keep watching Almost Human when it returns another year closer to its time, in January 2014.

See also: Almost Human debuts: A Review ... Almost Human 1.2: Sexbots ... Almost Human 1.3: Change of Face ... Almost Human 1.4: Almost Breaking Bad ... Almost Human 1.5: Clones and Holograms

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Almost Human 1.5: Clones and Holograms

Almost Human continues to walk one of the two possible paths of all successful television shows:  in the case of Almost Human, telling a new standalone story every week, while ever so slightly moving the underlying story along.   The alternative - which we get in Hostages, for example, also on television tonight - is to just tell only the underlying story, with differences in episodes largely or entirely due to the story moving along.

In Almost Human 1.5, we get two staples of science fiction - clones and holography - not only well presented together, but actually opponents in new tech opposition to one another.  The story begins with a witness testifying by holographic projection, to keep her safe.  She's shortly killed by someone who finds her real location, and it turns out that the killer is part of a team of clones of the defendant in the trial.

The other side of this story has a holographic image fooling the clones, and thereby enable the police in this future to prevail.  It's a nice allegory to the tune of crime and high-tech doesn't pay, if you can field another high-tech in the battle.

Meanwhile, we get some good Dorian/Kennex joking, with Kennex both relieved and a little taken aback to learn - and see - that Dorian's makers had the sense to make him anatomically complete (this after Kennex sees and doesn't want to see that Dorian's robotic successors are anatomy free).  But when Kennex asks Dorian what he uses his anatomy for, Dorian gets off the best line of the show, remarking that he does the same with his as Kennex does with his - nothing.

And Dorian's observation may be well taken, given what we've seen so far between Kennex and Valerie.  What's he waiting for?  Is he still in love with the woman who betrayed him?  Apparently not, but, then, what's taking him so long with Valerie? He saved her life tonight, and what better time to take it to at least the next level?  Almost Human needs to take care that it doesn't fall into a traditional television pitfall, in which couples make eyes at each all season, and little more.

See also: Almost Human debuts: A Review ... Almost Human 1.2: Sexbots ... Almost Human 1.3: Change of Face ... Almost Human 1.4: Almost Breaking Bad





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