I wonder if this show will evolve with the Synthetics revolting? Chances are Dorian will have to choose sides one day.
It certainly looked cool, and the partnership between Urban and Ealy might have potential.... but the story itself just never really grabbed me. It just felt like a generic mish-mash of other scifi movies and shows.
I kinda got the feeling that it was heading somewhere into that direction. With all the talk about the older synthetics having "emotional problems" and that other cop mocking the new partner with the "don't crack on us" comment. And his censored/classified history, I'm sure there is "more to the story" so to speak. I wonder if the head in the evidence locker was of his girlfriend and that was why she was missing. I wasn't tivoing the pilot so I couldn't go back and take a closer look. My suspicion that the syndicate was somehow connected to a synthetic revolt was further strengthened when the promo for tonights episode was about "someone" kidnapping human women to put their skin onto sexbots. Wonder if someone will refer to them as "skin jobs" lol.
That opening sequence sure seemed like a J.J. type opening, dropping us into the middle of an action sequence without any explanation. I know he isn't the only one who has done this but it does seem to be a "trademark" for him. So I'm thinking yeah, J.J. almost surely had some creative say. The show looked fantastic -- like a high budget movie. I had just seen the Robocop trailer for the first time, on Sunday morning and I'll add my voice to those who think that trailer and A.H. had a somewhat similar look and feel. I kinda didn't like that Dorian and John seemed to become friends so fast. I was hoping for a longer period of conflict/adjustment betwen the two. But the two actors seemed okay to me so far. J.J. Abrams seems to believe that action is the way to better ratings while the Shield producers seem to be putting more stock in character interaction (a Whedon trademark for sure). Its going to be interesting watching the contrasting philosophies of these shows and how their respective ratings battles will go. .
But to me that sounds more like it's going in an Alien Nation sort of direction, a minority group having to overcome prejudice and win acceptance. The irony is that the DRN-type models didn't have any more emotional problems than human cops would. But since they're not human, they were judged more severely for it. No, I believe that when Kennex recovered that last set of memories, he saw that his girlfriend was one of the terrorists behind the attack that killed his partner. So she's evidently one of the bad guys and was playing him. I don't see any reason why you would jump from "human skin on sexbots" to "synthetic revolt." I think you're just assuming that they're going to copy Battlestar Galactica rather than do something remotely original -- or at least copy one of the many, many other stories about robots that are out there. Heck, it's already very close to the I, Robot movie in a lot of ways, it has obvious parallels to Mann and Machine, people are comparing its version of the future to Blade Runner and Minority Report, and I've remarked on how its underlying premise reminds me of my own recent novel.
Interview with Abrams in which he clarifies his involvement in the show: http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/11/15/j-j-abrams-almost-human-interview/
Did anyone notice in tonight's episode that when the two main characters first appear that there's some kind of red spherical object in orbit? Space Station/Orbital colony?
I believe Dorian was already in space replacing some tiles on the object in question. I thought the pilot was ok and am interested enough to tune in again.
Tonight's episode was good. The best exchange between Dorian and Kennex tonight was when they were discussing Kennex's need to start dating again. Dorian: "I've scanned you and your testicles are at full capacity" Kennex: "You scanned my balls?"
I'm still not entirely sold on the series after episode 2. It's okay, has some interesting elements, but doesn't really grab me. For one thing, it's too much of a guy-centric series. There are two women in supporting roles, but one's just there to be the authority figure and the other doesn't have any personality yet beyond being a love interest for the lead male. And they jump right to a "sexbot" episode and all the bots are female except for one token male sexbot in the background at the showroom. The show's also pretty vague on the issue of robotic sentience. Dorian is treated as a person (at least by the writers), but the other androids seem to be more limited in their awareness and intelligence. And it's not clear what the public's attitude toward an AI like Dorian is; we know his series was considered unstable, but is there much prejudice against the idea of their personhood/sentience? A lot of issues that should be central to the series aren't really well-defined yet. The futurism here wasn't that impressive either. Rudy has a drawer full of wires and chargers? Come on. So much of our technology today is already wireless, and we've already got wireless charging to an extent. I'm also skeptical about the cell phones, which differ from modern phones only in being more "widescreen." And the cars are present-day, although I guess that's inescapable.
These past two episodes have been the most enjoyable scifi pilot I've seen in a while, mostly thanks to the fact that the entire cast is not populated by assholes and/or idiots. The Kennox/Dorian stuff is pretty good, although the whole blue balls thing was a bit too much. The only part I didn't like was the stereotypical "introverted nerd who is awkward with women" stuff with the synthetic expert guy, especially when he needed to get the GPS info out of that one sex-bot. Dude could've just stood to the side and plugged in the cable to avoid all that forced awkwardness. I'm pretty sure the MXs are deliberately less sapient/sentient, probably to ensure consistent performance if they directly replaced the DRNs. The sex bots are a lot harder to peg, because they supposedly have some of the same hardware as Dorian, but don't really have the same range, but that might be a programming/life span thing. I don't know if there's an issue with them being people, but that is something that needs to be explored later.
Talosian, I could not agree more. Something is definitely off-kilter, and the last time I heard a couple of young fellows talking about comic book movies really drove this home to me. The whole discussion was dominated by "Paramount-owns-this-character-then-he-won't-be-used-until-Marvel's-contract-for-so-and-so-expires-bla-bla-bla". Talking about the basic fun and appeal being lost!! It's like the sense of wonder and mystery has been supplanted by a sense of property.
The case was about sexbots. Would you have preferred it if they had used a different word every time they were referenced? That's like complaining about how many time they would say "cars" if it had been about an automobile theft ring.
Was it just me, or was Kennix's difficult lingering silent moment after admitting that he's into another woman, in front of the Captain, suggesting that it was the Captain who is the other woman who he is interested in? Lili is only 5 years his senior, and that's probably way more appropriate than the children they're going to pair him off against in future episodes.