Humans is a show that snuck up on me with how much it actually made me think, even though on the surface it just looks like another android sci-fi drama, It's a British American show that aired from 2015 to 2018, three seasons in total, and it's set in this other world -- where what looks like a very real android, known as a synth, has become a common household item, They're purchased the same way as a fridge or a car, except they look, move and even feel like a human life, and they do domestic chores, childcare, even companionship where needed.
The Hawkins family is a normal, busy family of the ordinary, who decide to purchase a synth to handle their cooking, cleaning, keeping their kids in line and the normal family chaos. They bring home a synth called Mia, but what they don't realise is that Mia is not like other synths , she's one of the handful who have come to consciousness, who can think, feel, experience, who can experience how a real person experiences , just trapped inside a body they assume is just a machine, from here the movie continues with this handful of mindful synths, struggling to survive and to remain unseen by a world unaware of what to do with a thing made for serving and that began to live.
My take on this is this, Most people who have watched this series just take the "are robots going to take over" spin on it and I don't really care about that part of it, What really made me think was the lack of difficulty that the human characters had to lean on their synths, not only for work but for emotional support as well, The series shows a husband who begins to become intimate with his synth and his wife notices and this begins to wreaks havoc on the relationship between the two. A lonely old man who treats his synth more like a real-life friend than with most of his friends. The true terror in this series is not the killer robots, but how fast humans are willing to outsource connection to something that never argues back, never gets tired, never says no, that's uncomfortable in a very real way, because you start realizing this isn't even that far off from things already happening around us with technology today.
Then there are, the synths themselves, the conscious ones who are afraid of being discovered, the ones who are afraid of being switched off, the ones who are afraid of being experimented upon, the ones who are afraid of anything other than being property of the world around them. That's watching Mia push through that, pretending to be an ordinary synth while she knows she's not, and feels it all the time, that hit different, hehe, It's a story on slavery and personhood, only this time it has a layer of synthetic skin on it and the seriee doesn't pretend that it will keep you from feeling uncomfortable.
The performances carry a lot of this weight too, Gemma Chan as Mia has to convey a vast amount of emotion in such measured ways, such subtle ways that are just below the surface, you are like watching someone play hide and seek, William Hurt's character adds this quieter emotional weight too, an old man whose relationship with his synth companion says more about loneliness in old age than most shows manage to say directly.
I do have a few issues with pacing though, some parts are a bit slower than they should be in certain episodes and extend the story out longer than it needs to be, but despite all that, the concepts behind the series are solid enough to keep re-absorbing you.
Humans is not about robots replacing humans, it's about what happens to human connection when you can replace the hard parts of a relationship with something that never pushes back. The question lingered in my mind after the series concluded and, come to think of it, that's the way it's supposed to be.
I still don't know why it ended the way It ended, but anyhow, it's a good watch.
Rating: 90/100
