Almost Human was back for its second show tonight - about sexbots aka bangbots - and was as good as the first. Lots of cool future tech on hand - from "DNA bombs" that bad guys use to erase all DNA evidence in a crime scene, to mechanical toy giraffes that move like the real living kind - all wrapped together in a story with heart and style.Dorian, as we know, is capable of emotion. He's attracted to a sexbot who is starting to bond with him - as per her programming - but has to be deactivated aka killed, because her skin is made of human DNA, and that's illegal.
The DNA from human skin is the centerpiece of the story and the police investigation, because the DNA is harvested from human woman who are kidnapped and eventually killed in the process. One might think that, by the 2040s and with all of this tech savvy, human skin DNA could be rapidly grown from a few cells - which could be grabbed from people without they're even knowing - but that's ok. The destruction of the human hosts in suitably future creepy labs lends a Matrix atmosphere to show, a good combination with the Bladerunner vibe.
Apropos Freud and his thanatos and libido as the motivating forces of life, Almost Human also deals with Dorian's attempt to understand the nature of death, which, of course, Kennex doesn't completely get, either, because none of us humans ever do. Kennex's view that the departed live on in the memories the living carry of them is as good as any view about how to transcend death, and it's better than most. This helps Dorian come to terms with the death of the sexbot that he never got to make love to, and Kennex with the death of his partner four years ago, as he pays a visit to his partner's home to tell his son about his father.
But back to libido, there's clearly some ahead, at least for Kennex, with Detective Stahl. And good humor - not one of Freud's basics, but still important - throughout the episode and, in particular, in the future tech guy, who looks and sounds like a young Ducky from NCIS.
I'll be back next week.
See also: Almost Human debuts: A Review
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A Twitter-savvy NCIS 11.3 last night, in which the social medium played a crucial role in nabbing LTJG Terrence Keith in the small plane he was flying, laden with explosives and heading for the USS Benjamin Franklin.
What do Lance Sweets and Ziva David have in common, you might ask? Certainly Ziva has never made an appearance on Bones - she's not even on the same network. But Sweets and Ziva both took leaves from their respective shows this week - Sweets from Bones, Ziva from NCIS - and both series will likely be poorer for it.
The exits of both were handled very well. Sweets wants to work in a precinct of psychology that doesn't entail shooting guns and grilling suspects. Ziva is put in touch with how every bad person she kills - however justified - leaves innocent loved ones grieving. In both stories, the departing character could have decided to stay, after all, but instead insisted on leaving.