Humans(2015) TV series

[kitik]

Humans renewed for a second season.
It'll also be 8 episodes, just like season 1.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2015/07/31/humans-renewed-for-second-season-by-abc-channel-4-and-kudos/439972/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Tvbythenumbers+%28TVbytheNumbers%29

 

[hux]

It's a bit anti-climactic when the thing that everyone thought would happen if they all linked actually turns out to be exactly that. Was hoping for a bit more of a twist but ok, fine. And thank goodness young George Michael was there to notice that Fred was acting strange. Has anyone else started pressing underneath people's chins when they're boring you? Just me?

If it was a US show, there would be more explosions and car chases which would certainly be entertaining but occasionally, it's nice to have a show that has more of a slow-burn and a cerebral, atmospheric feel. Overall, I've enjoyed it. A slightly flat end to the series but I'll definitely be tuning in for the second.

Synth cop is still the most interesting character. And I still think she's right about the consequences. More conscious synths will simply lead to war.

I love it in movies and TV when characters are looking at code on a screen and they say it's behaving weird. You mean the squiggles aren't behaving like squiggle on a screen should be? Fair enough love.

When Niska went to give Mia a hug before she left, I was almost certain they were going to start passionately French kissing. It strangely didn't happen. Fingers crossed it will be a major feature of series two though.

 

[Borgminister]

Happy to hear it. Flawed, but interesting show. So many synth tribes, and no Maslany to bring them together!

Seriously though, some touching moments, and I hope season 2 can weave the disparate elements together. Synth Cop is the wildcard now.

 

[kitik]

I quite love the way they left it all. Sophie was funny at the end. Synth Cop, who spent her whole life feeling more alone than even Niska and Leo and the others could possibly know, got a happy ending. Maybe we should call her by her real (chosen) name now. (I think it was perhaps Karen?)

Laura and Niska each pretty much hold the fate of the world in their hands. Or at least the fate of millions (I don't think there's billions) of synths. That's a nice little angle for the show to take. Two characters with very different ideas, but for now at least, they're not immediately ready to unleash this upon the world right now.

I'm not entirely clear on how Max got fixed at the end, and Fred didn't. Some sort of reset button? Computer magic?

I do wonder about the long-term plans for the world in this show. The pro-human movement marching in the streets certainly has a point. What future is in store for humanity when synths can take so many jobs? But once Pandora's Box has been opened, there's no going back. (By the way, anyone enjoying this show really needs to watch Ex Machina, though I'm sure many of you have already.) It would be nice if this show had some ideas about how society would really function in a conscious synth future, as opposed to the old trick of waking up all the synths in the final scene of the final episode, and then immediately cutting to the credits.

 

[Deckerd]

I too am pleased that synth cop got her happy ending. She is less sentimental than the others (except perhaps Niska) because she's been on her own. She's also more clear thinking than the others. I remain frustrated at the soggy mess Leo is. You'd thinkas the only human hybrid he would provide some kind of leadership instead of bleating about his family all the time.

Best scene: when Max said goodbye to Fred and put the tarp over him, Laura was openly crying in the background. She's the strongest and most humane of all of them.

 

[Starkers]

The past couple of episodes I've been expecting the dad to betray them (in the best interests of his family) but I'm glad that didn't happen. I agree with what people have said, it was a little bit of an anti-climax, but that's nice sometimes, as Hux says it's nice to have thoughtful sci-fi that doesn't rely on explosions/car chases etc. Also Hux, no I haven't been pressing under people's chins, but now you've given me the idea...

Deckerd, I agree about Laura, Katherine Parkinson's been great. I think Leo has good reasons for being messed up, it must be really unsettling to never forget anything. I'm reminded of a line in Strange Days "Our memories fade, they're designed that way for a reason."

It'll be interesting to see what Niska does with the program, in a way it makes sense that she played everyone but I'm slightly disappointed as I thought of all the synths she was the one who'd developed the most. When one of the human protesters seemed to recognise her I thought we were going to get a more violence conclusion than we got...she really needs to change her hair colour of something though!

It would be interesting to see how the world developed if the program got out. I'm guessing there would be a rush to become hybrids like Leo, so there are effectively three groups of people; synths, hybrids and humans, with the latter dwindling (maybe children will all be hybridised as a matter of course?) Of course even though they'd be mentally on a par with the synths (to a point) physically they'd be inferior.

Really however empathetic Mia and co are, Karen is right, synths with consciousness and free will do potentially mean the end of humanity (as we know it) the question becomes, do we step aside gracefully or do we fight back?

Looking forward to where season 2 goes now.

 

[Deckerd]

The past couple of episodes I've been expecting the dad to betray them (in the best interests of his family) but I'm glad that didn't happen. I agree with what people have said, it was a little bit of an anti-climax, but that's nice sometimes, as Hux says it's nice to have thoughtful sci-fi that doesn't rely on explosions/car chases etc. Also Hux, no I haven't been pressing under people's chins, but now you've given me the idea...

Deckerd, I agree about Laura, Katherine Parkinson's been great. I think Leo has good reasons for being messed up, it must be really unsettling to never forget anything. I'm reminded of a line in Strange Days "Our memories fade, they're designed that way for a reason."

It'll be interesting to see what Niska does with the program, in a way it makes sense that she played everyone but I'm slightly disappointed as I thought of all the synths she was the one who'd developed the most. When one of the human protesters seemed to recognise her I thought we were going to get a more violence conclusion than we got...she really needs to change her hair colour of something though!

It would be interesting to see how the world developed if the program got out. I'm guessing there would be a rush to become hybrids like Leo, so there are effectively three groups of people; synths, hybrids and humans, with the latter dwindling (maybe children will all be hybridised as a matter of course?) Of course even though they'd be mentally on a par with the synths (to a point) physically they'd be inferior.

Really however empathetic Mia and co are, Karen is right, synths with consciousness and free will do potentially mean the end of humanity (as we know it) the question becomes, do we step aside gracefully or do we fight back?

Looking forward to where season 2 goes now.

I think if this show taught us anything it's that there doesn't need to be a fight and there doesn't need to be one species dominant over the other. I hope it continues in this vein because it's a refreshing change from blood and mayhem. Laura's family were very much like the people who sheltered Jews in Europe in the Second WW. They were driven to do it because of their humanity. The synths are easily equal to that so the outcome is not necessarily a bad one. Remember the people first protesters are protesting against robots, not sentient beings.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Well that's a split issue.

They're against "things" taking their minimum wage jobs.

Sentient Synths are not going to want minimum wage jobs.

Brave New World talked about this.

A nation of nothing Alpha class humans will fail because they all want to be important and no one wants to grunt about.

A hospital of nothing but administrators who think medicine is beneath them, is even more likely than a hospital of doctors who think nursing is beneath them, so really in either case no one is going to clean up vomit and repaint the hallways, so the hospital fails.

Synth intellect and ambition would have to be intentionally stratified, so that enough of them will want to dig ditches, so that the Synths who want to manage hedge funds can do that in a world that is not falling apart because no one is replacing spent lightbulbs.

Meh.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

That was godawful.

As it neared the end I figured, okay there will at least be something super dramatic and cool to make up for this tension-less tedium. Nope.

 

[hux]

There's some talk online that the final episode was supposed to finish the series entirely but when it was given a second series, there was some heavy editing done last minute.

That might explain the damp squib-ness of it all.

Dunno.

 

[trash80]

I wonder if Leo's character can be explained by immaturity, a still-child like (or adolescent mind) in an adult's body... like the Gene Hunt character was shown to be in LOM/A2A.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

There's some talk online that the final episode was supposed to finish the series entirely but when it was given a second series, there was some heavy editing done last minute.

That might explain the damp squib-ness of it all.

Dunno.

That's interesting and would explain a lot. The whole thing was very odd. The trading of the laptop for the synths was just wtf. That no one thought of the most basic tracking device made no sense.

When Sophie dropped the giraffe in the rotunda I expected there to be the classic child pulls away from mommy and runs back for toy scene thus ruining escape.. which didn't happen. Not that I wanted it to happen, it was just odd all round to have the giraffe shot.

Everyone acted like they were underwater this ep.

I wouldn't be banging on it so hard if it wasn't supposed to be a finale. You can do a quiet interesting finale but this wasn't it.

This was the only episode I didn't like, very impressed with the series.

I wonder if Leo's character can be explained by immaturity, a still-child like (or adolescent mind) in an adult's body... like the Gene Hunt character was shown to be in LOM/A2A.

I suggested that a while back.

http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=11220415&postcount=116

Though no one else reacts to him that way in the show, just the viewers

 

[Starkers]

The past couple of episodes I've been expecting the dad to betray them (in the best interests of his family) but I'm glad that didn't happen. I agree with what people have said, it was a little bit of an anti-climax, but that's nice sometimes, as Hux says it's nice to have thoughtful sci-fi that doesn't rely on explosions/car chases etc. Also Hux, no I haven't been pressing under people's chins, but now you've given me the idea...

Deckerd, I agree about Laura, Katherine Parkinson's been great. I think Leo has good reasons for being messed up, it must be really unsettling to never forget anything. I'm reminded of a line in Strange Days "Our memories fade, they're designed that way for a reason."

It'll be interesting to see what Niska does with the program, in a way it makes sense that she played everyone but I'm slightly disappointed as I thought of all the synths she was the one who'd developed the most. When one of the human protesters seemed to recognise her I thought we were going to get a more violence conclusion than we got...she really needs to change her hair colour of something though!

It would be interesting to see how the world developed if the program got out. I'm guessing there would be a rush to become hybrids like Leo, so there are effectively three groups of people; synths, hybrids and humans, with the latter dwindling (maybe children will all be hybridised as a matter of course?) Of course even though they'd be mentally on a par with the synths (to a point) physically they'd be inferior.

Really however empathetic Mia and co are, Karen is right, synths with consciousness and free will do potentially mean the end of humanity (as we know it) the question becomes, do we step aside gracefully or do we fight back?

Looking forward to where season 2 goes now.

I think if this show taught us anything it's that there doesn't need to be a fight and there doesn't need to be one species dominant over the other. I hope it continues in this vein because it's a refreshing change from blood and mayhem. Laura's family were very much like the people who sheltered Jews in Europe in the Second WW. They were driven to do it because of their humanity. The synths are easily equal to that so the outcome is not necessarily a bad one. Remember the people first protesters are protesting against robots, not sentient beings.

The synths are capable of compassion, the same as humans, but also like humans they're capable of all other actions and emotions, you only have to look at Niska to see that, so it could go either way.

If conscious synths become the norm eventually humanity as it exists now will fall away, right now our best hope is that the AIs will want to keep us around as pets

 

[sojourner]

Dissapointed that we in the U.S. apparently got different edits of the episode. I kept waiting for the scene discussed earlier in the thread regarding the cop's wife and her unfortunate mod of her synth. Never happened. Now wonder what else got edited out.

 

[slappy]

I like this show. The blonde synth is so gorgeous, it's almost painful.

Anyways, it seems they threw alot at the audience in the last couple episodes. Probably too much. I could've done without the mom synth altogether. Or just left her as a cop/rogue synth with no connection to the family.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Dissapointed that we in the U.S. apparently got different edits of the episode. I kept waiting for the scene discussed earlier in the thread regarding the cop's wife and her unfortunate mod of her synth. Never happened. Now wonder what else got edited out.

!!! that's terrible!

 

[kitik]

Do you mean the scene where the synth was banging on the door?

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I found this:

Good, but will Americans ever get to see the full uncensored episodes that air on Channel 4 in Britain? In case you didn’t know the full versions of the episodes are about 4-5 minutes longer than the terrible AMC edits that purposefully remove content that many more prudish Americans would be uncomfortable with (IE: The teenage daughter claiming to be masturbating in order to stop her parents from entering her room).

From the comments section here:

http://deadline.com/2015/07/humans-renewed-season-2-amc-channel-4-1201488376/

So I'm gonna assume america missed scene with modded sexbot synth the wife lost control of.

Had a cursory look on youtube, couldn't find it. But it's probably.. somewhere.

 

[Forbin]

Sorry I missed that...

 

[Borgminister]

Really surprised AMC would cut those scenes out, given what they do show. Ah, but that's always in terms of gore and violence, isn't it. Guess you have to draw the line at sex scenes.

Guess I'll have to Netflix it when that happens.