5 out of 5

Created By: Lars Lundström

covers season 1

Finally, there’s at least one other non Breaking Bad show that manages to make every episode a solid and thoughtful contribution to its own concepts as well as inching plots forward in desired directions.  (No, I haven’t yet seen The Wire.)  ‘Real Humans’ is only one season deep thus far, with season 2 just starting, so there’s admittedly time for this to go off the rails.  But there are a couple things going in its favor as we carefully tread into the future: I’m forever a believer in creator consistency when you have non-episodic shows; thus keeping creator / writer Lars Lundström as the sole scripter for all 10 eps of season 1 and the three aired eps of season 2 plus keeping the directors limited to a small circle (here we have two so far – Harald Hamrell and Levan Akin) I would think increases the likelihood of a meatier visual palette – because you can stretch ideas out for a longer run and not have to prove it all in 60 minutes – and can only better the creative link between writers and actors.  I understand why teams get shuffled and why you have show runners and such, but it’s two different models.  And with television producing (or attempting to produce, that silly sentient concept) more fleshed out, movie-like dramas with storylines that want to be well-woven and interconnected and contemplative, yes, J.J. Abrams, you want to splash your big ideas in as many different directions as possible, but maybe you or your underlings should stick around beyond a pilot episode.  We seem to be grabbing more and more from comic books structures (or comics from TV / movies, creating a cycle), so the structure of writers / artists (directors) for story arcs seems sensible as well.

But enough ranting about the first of two positives ‘Real Humans’ has established.  ‘Cause there’s that second thing.  Remember?  You remember.  You scanned ahead because you were so eager to lap up my yum yum gummy words, so now maybe I should remind you instead about the first thing.  ‘Cause it’s still up there.  Waiting for you.  Expecting you.  But not with bells on.  Because it doesn’t like you.  Sorry to break it to you like this, but that yearning look on your face just breaks my little texty heart and I can’t stand to see First Thing continue with its rampage of yearning-destroying.  First it was that seniors pilates class it snuck into (no one survived, poor dears), and now you.  Don’t worry, though.  Thing Two will take care of you.  I accept you for what you’ve done, except for that horrible thing you feel stupid about.

Yeep: ’cause ‘Real Humans’ does have an over-arching story to tell us, but it can afford to take its time because it’s not just relying on its sci-fi hook of human-looking robots.  There’s an incredible sense of world building to this nigh future setup, but related comfortably, without the fairly American need to lay it all out right away so we don’t get skeptical or bored.  So story revelations via flashbacks feel like the details they are instead of rewritten retcons or forced ‘gasp’ moments.  Along with this is a pleasant sense of normality and, ahem, humanity… amongst the humans.  Films and shows love drama, and we feed into it.  If we see a character faced with a questionable decision, drama logic demands that they make the ‘wrong’ decision, or whatever might play that way for the audience.  So early on when the father of our main human family considers a ‘sex chip’ that came bundled as an extra with his new ‘hubot’ – the Real Humans term for the robot proxies – we pretty much take it for granted that he’s gonna have a robot affair.  But the show does so much more with that chip by doing so much less obviously, and strings it out into affecting character moments that allow room for viewer consideration instead of a forced opinion.

‘Hubots.’  Most families have one.  They come in worker formats, caretaker formats, sex formats.  But it’s all programming.  And yet they’re becoming closer and closer to being human… some owners going to the black market to have the ‘Asimov Rules’ overwritten to bring that robot AI closer to something approximating… whatever that difference is between us and them.  So relationships with robots.  Do robots have rights?  What’s the difference between us and them?  These are, of course, not new questions for this genre, but all the projects that have taken the concept in different directions succeed or don’t based on their stance or approach, and certainly different books or films work for different people.  Some extra intrigue is added to ‘Real Humans’ via a rumored troupe of rogue hubots who have been liberated of owners and would claim to ‘think’ for themselves.  But the real joy is the open forum.  People are positively and negatively affected by these advancements, and life trudges forth.

In that same way that ‘Breaking Bad’ had a core structure to fall back on but was, indeed, about so much more, ‘Real Humans’ strikes the perfect blend for speculative sci-fi, brought to life by a reliable creative time and perfectly – across the board – cast group of actors.