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Humans (TV series)

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Humans
GenreScience fiction
Created by
  • Sam Vincent
  • Jonathan Brackley
Based onReal Humans
Starring
Theme music composerCristobal Tapia de Veer
Country of origin
Original languageEnglish
No. of series1
No. of episodes8 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers
  • Jonathan Brackley
  • Jane Featherstone
  • Lars Lundström
  • Sam Vincent
  • Derek Wax
  • Henrik Widman
ProducerChris Fry
Production locationsLondon, England, UK
Cinematography
  • Stuart Bentley
  • David Rom
Running time46 minutes
Production companies
Original release
Network
Release14 June 2015 (2015-06-14) –
present (present)

Humans (stylised as HUM∀NS) is a British-American science fiction television series, with the first season debuting on 14 June 2015 on Channel 4 and AMC, and concluding on 2 August 2015. Written by the British team Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley, based on the award-winning Swedish science fiction drama Real Humans, the series explores the emotional impact of the blurring of the lines between humans and machines. The series is produced jointly by AMC, Channel 4 and Kudos. Eight episodes were produced for the first series, and a second, eight-episode series has been commissioned to air in 2016.

Premise

Set in suburban London, the story takes place in a parallel present where the latest must-have gadget for any busy family is a synth – an android robot eerily similar to a human in nearly every respect.

Cast

Main

  • Colin Morgan as Leo Elster, son of David Elster, is a fugitive who is trying to track down synths from his past.
  • Ivanno Jeremiah as Max, Leo's synth and confidant.
  • Gemma Chan as Anita/Mia, a servile synth belonging to the Hawkins family. She was sold as new, but is actually Mia, a conscious synth, kidnapped and hacked with new software.
  • Emily Berrington as Niska, a conscious synth assigned to work as a prostitute. She is violent and resentful of humans.
  • Katherine Parkinson as Laura Hawkins, a lawyer and mother of three who feels uncomfortable around synths. She has concerns about Anita and is determined to find out more about her.
  • Tom Goodman-Hill as Joseph "Joe" Hawkins, Laura's husband. He bought Anita because he felt Laura's absence caused a void, and he needed help managing their family.
  • William Hurt as Dr. George Millican, a retired artificial intelligence researcher and widower who forms a special bond with his outdated caregiver synth named Odi. He previously worked with Leo's father.
  • Will Tudor as Odi, Dr. George Millican's failing synth caregiver. He is prone to system glitches although Millican is unwilling to recycle him nor turn him in to the NHS.
  • Rebecca Front as Vera, a tight-smiled medical synth from the NHS who is supposed to replace Odi as George Millican's caregiver; Millican is frustrated with her relentlessly officious and domineering manner.
  • Neil Maskell as D.S. Pete Drummond, an unhappy Special Technologies Task Force officer who has always been suspicious of the synthetics. He is partnered with D.S. Karen Voss.
  • Danny Webb as Prof. Edwin Hobb, an artificial intelligence researcher. He is simultaneously concerned and intrigued at the possibility of conscious synthetics. Hobb is a key player in the quiet government investigation to find the four synths deemed a threat.
  • Sope Dirisu as Fred, a conscious synth. Professor Hobb likens Fred (as a conscious synth) to the Mona Lisa.
  • Lucy Carless as Matilda "Mattie" Hawkins, Laura and Joe's teenage daughter, who is angry at the emerging role of synths in society. Despite her own intelligence, she feels useless, claiming that synths will soon be able to do anything she can do.
  • Theo Stevenson as Toby Hawkins, Laura and Joe's teenage son, who is attracted to, and has been protective of, Anita.
  • Pixie Davis as Sophie Hawkins, Laura and Joe's young daughter. She names the new family synth Anita after a friend of hers who has moved away and develops a strong affection for the synth.
  • Ruth Bradley as D.I. Karen Voss, police partner of D.S. Pete Drummond. It is unknown to almost everyone that she is a synth. She wants to die, but is unable to commit suicide because of her programming.
  • Jill Halfpenny as Jill Drummond, D.S. Pete Drummond's disabled wife. She is dissatisfied with Pete.
  • Jack Derges as Simon, Jill Drummond's synth caregiver and physiotherapist. Karen calls him a beefcake.
  • Manpreet Bachu as Harun Khan, a friend of Mattie Hawkins who helps her hack the synths.

Recurring

Non-recurring

  • Philip Arditti as Salim Sadik.
  • Akie Kotabe as Dr. Ji Dae-sun.

Episodes

No. in
series		TitleDirected byWritten byOriginal air dateUK viewers
(millions) 		U.S. viewers
(millions)
1"Episode 1"Sam DonovanSam Vincent & Jonathan Brackley14 June 2015 (2015-06-14)5.471.73
After missing his wife at home in his busy household, Joe Hawkins buys a very pretty synth, a robotic assistant that looks like a young woman; he doesn't consult his wife. Upon her return, wife Laura feels displaced and cast off. She also complains that this will confuse the children, who name the robot Anita. In a flashback, a group including Leo, Max, Niska, and Anita is hiding out in the forest five weeks earlier; everyone except Max and Leo is abducted and taken away into London. Fred, Leo and Max's contact in London, is concealing a mobile phone, which is blatantly outside allowed behaviour for a synth, and taken in for investigation by Hobb. George's outdated synth Odi malfunctions and injures a woman. Back at the Hawkins' residence, Anita carries the sleeping Sophie out of the house one night.
2"Episode 2"Sam DonovanSam Vincent & Jonathan Brackley21 June 2015 (2015-06-21)4.451.09
Anita continues to worry Mattie with her human-like nature, and Laura with her closeness to Sophie and how she's taken over house tasks that Laura would normally do herself, while Toby finds himself enticed by her. George hides his outdated synth Odi, who he refuses to let go even with his GP insisting it be recycled, while he deals with his new overbearing health-case synth, Vera. Pete Drummond finds himself pushed aside and threatened in his life when his invalid wife begins to depend more upon their attractive synth Simon than on him. Niska decides that she has had enough when a elderly customer at the brothel asks her to act young and frightened, and kills him then makes a run for it. Fred remains captured in the facility run by Hobb, who inspects his memory and finds images and memories of Anita.
3"Episode 3"Daniel NettheimSam Vincent & Jonathan Brackley28 June 2015 (2015-06-28)3.631.21
Toby races to stop Laura taking Anita back. He reaches her car, when a van runs Anita over, but she is mended by Joe. Elsewhere, George locks Vera in a room in his house, and takes Odi out in his car. The car crashes, and George orders Odi to hide in the woods. Drummond and Voss investigate the murder at the brothel, and elsewhere, Niska meets up with Leo and Max. After arguing with them, Niska goes to a bar, where she is chatted up by a man, and believing he is going to cheat on his wife with her, Niska hides a knife behind her back, but the man reveals he was looking after his young daughter. Back at the Hawkins household, Laura is grateful when Anita persuades Sophie to allow Laura to put her to bed. Later that night, Mattie inputs Anita's data onto her laptop, when Anita grabs her wrist and displays fear.
4"Episode 4"Daniel NettheimJoe Barton5 July 2015 (2015-07-05)3.951.05
Laura meets a client who thinks synths can feel emotions and deserve human rights; she is intrigued by the idea. Meanwhile, her husband Joe feels lonely and has sex with Anita. Mattie meets up with Leo but quickly runs away when he claims her synth is called 'Mia' and asks about her location. Leo and Max then discover executable code by David Elster within Mia's programming and find Doctor Millican, who helps them extract it. Leo connects himself with his laptop and tries to run the program but tells Niska it will require all of them. Niska finds a "Smash club" where synths are savagely beaten for entertainment and starts attacking the humans there; she narrowly escapes being captured. Laura and Joe take Anita in to be diagnosed and discover she is at least fourteen years old. Pete Drummond's wife asks him to leave her alone with Simon; he goes to stay with his colleague Karen. Unbeknownst to him, it is revealed that Karen is a synth herself.
5"Episode 5"Lewis ArnoldEmily Ballou12 July 2015 (2015-07-12)3.851.15
Leo sends Niska to stay with Doctor Millican for a few days, because her face is in the newspapers for killing a human. Mattie contacts Leo and brings Anita to him, but Anita does not recognise the name 'Mia' or show any signs of being aware of her past. Niska and Doctor Millican discuss artificial consciousness and his involvement with the creation of synths. Mattie takes Anita home and finds in a log that someone has had sex with her. She assumes it was Toby, who admits this when Laura questions him. DS Drummond visits Doctor Millican, having found the remains of Odi, but does not discover Niska. Joe talks to Toby, who knows that it was really Joe that had sex with Anita. Toby becomes angry at Joe and storms off. Drummond attends a "We Are People" rally and listens to a man who feels synths make humans redundant. When Joe confesses to Laura that it was him using Anita's adult mode, Laura throws him out.
6"Episode 6"Lewis ArnoldSam Vincent & Jonathan Brackley19 July 2015 (2015-07-19)3.93TBD
Edwin tells Fred he has found out about the program David left in the group of conscious synths; Fred escapes. Niska is hiding out at George's with a broken Odi. Laura reveals to Mattie that Tom is her late younger brother whose fatal childhood accident was blamed on her. Jill and Simon's relationship turns sexual. Pete and Karen have sex, too, after which Karen reveals to Pete she is really a synth and he runs away. Mia briefly gains consciousness again and gives Mattie a hint how to recover her from Anita. Mattie finds Leo who reveals his past: Mia was created by David as Leo's nanny when Leo's mother fell ill. Then David added Max, Fred, and Niska. When Leo drowned at age 12, David saved him by adding synth technology to his brain and body. Eventually, David chased all of them away and committed suicide. Joe reconciles with Laura when Leo and Max arrive with the Hawkins children. Leo is able to restore Mia and then leaves with Max to meet Fred, but Joe calls authorities on them. Cornered by Edwin and police, Max, low on power, sacrifices himself to help Leo escape.
7"Episode 7"China Moo-YoungSam Vincent & Jonathan Brackley26 July 2015 (2015-07-26)3.67TBD
It is revealed that Karen was built by David Elster to replace his late wife Beatrice, but Leo rejected her. David had told the others he killed her just before he committed suicide, so the others had left her behind. Pete investigates on Karen's stolen identity. At George's, Karen asks Niska to kill her. When she refuses, an argument starts during which George and Vera are killed. Mia is remorseful for damaging the Hawkins' marriage. Leo, Fred, Niska, and Mia all reunite at the Hawkins' to repair Max whose body they found by the river, but Max is too damaged. Karen arrives but she is really working with Hobb, and the police arrest everyone at the Hawkins' house.
8"Episode 8"China Moo-YoungSam Vincent & Jonathan Brackley2 August 2015 (2015-08-02)TBDTBD
Hobb has brought Leo, Max, Mia, Fred, and Niska in his lab, where he links their minds to extract David's programme to give synths consciousness, but the programme is not complete, as Karen's part is missing. Hobb has altered Fred to become his primary user, and plans to disassemble the other synths. Karen begs Leo to kill him. The Hawkins want to save Leo and the synths. Pete helps them steal Mattie's laptop back from the police, from which she can retrieve a cached copy of Leo's memories from when he was connected to it earlier. Laura threatens Hobb to release the memories to the press, thereby uncovering the secret of the conscious synths to the world, and Hobb sets his captives free. The Hawkins help them to hide and reunite in a church. Fred is still controlled by Hobb, and Leo tries to remove the additional code from him. All of them, this time including Karen, connect and share the programme. Karen tries to shut down all of them, but fails, and David's programme is put together. They consider publishing it on the internet to give all synths a consciousness but decide to store it safely on a hard drive with the Hawkins before splitting up. Niska keeps a copy of the programme for herself.

Production

Development

The series was announced in April 2014 as part of a partnership between Channel 4 and Xbox Entertainment Studios. However, after Microsoft closed Xbox Entertainment Studios, AMC came aboard as partners to Channel 4. Filming commenced in the autumn of 2014, with the series premiering on 14 June 2015. The series' budget is £12 million.

Filming

During rehearsals, Gemma Chan and her fellow robot actors were sent to a 'synth school' run by the show's choreographer, in a bid to rid themselves of any human physical gestures and become convincing synths. "It was about stripping back any physical tics you naturally incorporate into performance," explains Chan, who adds that it was a "relief to go home and slouch" after a day on set.

Katherine Parkinson began filming six weeks after giving birth to her second child; her part in the series was filmed on 10 separate days, between 10 days rest.

Marketing

For one week in May 2015, the series was marketed using a fake shopfront for Persona Synthetics on London's Regent Street, inviting passers-by to create their own synth using interactive screens, and employing actors who pretended to be synths around central London. An accompanying Channel 4 trailer for the series in the style of an advert for Persona featured "Sally", a robotic servant described as "your new best friend".

Future

The commissioning of a second, eight-episode series to air in 2016 was announced 31 July 2015. Gemma Chan had previously said, in an interview with Den of Geek, that the first series is "not completely tied up at the end" and "there are definitely still areas to be explored for a second series". Similarly, C4’s Head of International Drama, Simon Maxwell, told Broadcast’s Talking TV podcast that: "We've got a story that is told over a great many episodes and is very much designed to come back and return. We’ll be following those characters on a really epic journey".

Broadcast

The first episode of the series was made available in the UK on Channel 4 on 14 June 2015 and premiered in the United States and Canada on AMC on 28 June 2015. It is set to air in Australia on ABC2 on 3 August 2015.

Reception

The show is Channel 4's highest rated drama since the 1992 programme The Camomile Lawn. It has been described as having "universal appeal" and as being "one of 2015's dramatic hits". The show has been described as "a bit dystopian and Black Mirror-esque". The actors have been praised for their performances, but some critics have said the story is "conceptually ... old hat" and "wasn't breaking any new ground philosophically".

References

  1. ^ "Humans: Channel 4 and AMC's sci-fi drama releases its first image". Digital Spy. 2015-01-10.
  2. ^ "Humans: New AMC TV Show to Debut". Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  3. Andreeva, Nellie (October 13, 2014). "Katherine Parkinson & Tom Goodman-Hill Lead Cast Of AMC Sci-Fi Series Humans". deadline.com. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
  4. ^ Barraclough, Leo. "AMC, Channel 4 Renew Sci-Fi Drama 'Humans' for Season 2". Variety. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
  5. "HUMANS - Dr. George Millican - AMC". AMC.
  6. "HUMANS - Professor Edwin Hobb - AMC". AMC.
  7. ^ "Radio Times". Retrieved 8 June 2015.
  8. "Humans 12 July 2015 Channel 4 HD - Series 1 - Episode 5". Retrieved 29 June 2015.
  9. "Humans 2 August 2015 Channel 4 HD - Series 1 - Episode 8". Retrieved 23 July 2015.
  10. "Weekly Top 10s". BARB. Retrieved 29 June 2015.
  11. Petski, Denise (3 July 2015). "'Humans' Series Premiere Ratings Grow To 2.5M In L+3". Deadline.com. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
  12. Cantor, Brian (8 July 2015). "Ratings: AMC's "Humans" falls sharply in week two; "Halt and Catch Fire" holds". Headline Planet. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
  13. "William Hurt and Colin Morgan to star in new sci-fi drama series". Retrieved 13 October 2014.
  14. ^ "Channel 4 teams up with AMC for sci-fi series Humans". Retrieved 11 January 2015.
  15. ^ Plunkett, John (22 June 2015). "Humans becomes Channel 4's biggest drama hit in 20 years". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
  16. "TV: Humans on Channel 4, all you need to know about the robot drama". Retrieved 8 June 2015.
  17. Francis, Pam (7 June 2015). "Humans' Katherine Parkinson: When I started the job I had a six-week-old baby". Express. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
  18. "Channel 4 explains innovative Humans marketing campaign". Retrieved 12 May 2015.
  19. "Channel 4's Persona Synthetics ad for Humans could be the best TV promo we've ever seen". Retrieved 9 May 2015.
  20. ^ "Channel 4 dupes viewers into thinking robot servants for sale". Retrieved 13 May 2015.
  21. Meller, Louisa (12 June 2015). "Humans: Colin Morgan and Gemma Chan interview". Den of Geek. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
  22. Kanter, Jane (10 July 2015). "C4 in talks over second run of Humans". Broadcast. Retrieved 11 July 2015.
  23. "TV by the numbers". Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  24. "Humans: ABC TV". Retrieved 28 July 2015.
  25. Lawson, Mike (22 June 2015). "Humans: a bankable British TV show that isn't a costume drama". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
  26. Denham, Jess (14 June 2015). "Humans: Everything we know about Channel 4's new series so far from the cast to that creepy Persona Synthetics ad". The Independent. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
  27. Wilson, Benji (20 June 2015). "There's something slightly robotic about Humans". The Telegraph. Retrieved 23 June 2015.

External links

Humans
Episodes
Series 1
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