With the coming of the age of the nerd/geek, it can be difficult to pick from the geek TV offerings. Geek Chic is here to help! We logged, collated, and judged each show until we picked the very best one to critique, for you our loyal listening public…
(Okay, so really I just randomly picked on of my favorite shows to watch and now I’m going to pimp it… whatever. Back to topic.)
And here it is: Almost Human
Almost Human is a near future sci-fi tv series brought to us by J.J. Abram and Joel Wyman. Karl Urban of Doom and Star Trek plays John Kennex, a gritty police officer, who wakes up from a 2 year coma to find his previous life was a lie. He’s been fitted with a cybernetic leg to replace the one he lost in the explosion that killed his partner and took two year of his life.
When he returns to work he learns from Captain Maldonado, played by Lili Taylor of The Haunting and Hemlock Grove, that his new partner will be a life-like android, an MX model. It becomes quickly apparent that Detective Kennex doesn’t trust his silicone partner and after an incident Captain Maldonado reassigns him with an older model, DRN.
Dorian, played by Michael Ealy of Underworld Awakening and The Good Wife, turns out to be almost more human that his human counterpart. Given a “synthetic soul” and able to make intuitive connections that the logic based MX’s aren’t capable of.
Each individual episode is free standing; however, as one might suspect with J.J. Abrams involved there is also an over arching plot as Kennex tries to understand who and why his partner was killed.
In an interview with Karl Urban by Christina Radish of The Collider Karl explains his enthusiasm with the character of John Kennex:
“I’m excited, every week, when I get a new script. I’m like, “Oh, wow! Cool! That’s really, really interesting.” I just look at John like he’s a character who’s trying to find himself. He’s a character who’s trying to regain elements of his former life and find his humanity. The irony is that he’s learning lessons in humanity from a synthetic life-form. That’s such a genius idea.”
I recommend this TV show to anyone who likes sci-fi, action dramas or Karl Urban. Three thumbs up from me!