In the new drama series Humans, Channel 4's mix of the domestic and science fiction conspiracy is a must-see.
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| Part of Channel 4's ingenious marketing campaign. (Image: Channel 4) |
This new drama
has a commendably simple premise: technology is now so advanced that it looks
like real people. This concept is laid out in a wonderfully evocative opening
scene in which semi-naked ‘Synths’ – artificial human servants – stand in
uniform lines in a warehouse. Neatly indicating that something has gone disturbingly
awry with the Synth production line, one of them breaks ranks by raising its
head to look at the moon.
A first episode by its very nature
has to introduce the series’ scenario and characters, and the first part of Humans
was particularly impressive as it covered A LOT of ground in under an hour.
The four concurrent and related plots moved deftly from family tension to
global conspiracy: the overworked and dysfunctional Hawkins family acquired a
female Synth, ‘Anita’ (Gemma Chan), capable of the heresy of independent
thought; five weeks in the future, an escape route for Synths run by Leo (Colin
Morgan) includes Anita, who he’s in love with; a man called Hobb (DannyWebb)
heads a covert unit hunting Synths who have learned to lie and change their names
while, in the fourth plot line, an old man called George Millican (a movingly
restrained William Hurt) refuses to trade up his defective, young male Synth
for a newer model, treating the machine like a son he can’t let go of.
That’s the real genius of this series:
with technology that looks human, the writers Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley
are able to invoke skewed takes on familiar situations. In a conventional drama
series, Anita would be the attractive, sly home help with designs on luring Joe
(the always believable Tim Goodman-Hill) away from his overworked and often
absent career wife Laura (Katharine Parkinson). That’s also the case here, but it’s
set up through the suggestive promise of the ‘adult options’ software that the
Synth salesman palms to Joe with a wink, and, chillingly, the way Anita bonds
with Laura’s children. The youngest Sophie (Pixie Davies) claims that the Synth
‘doesn’t rush’ her bedtime reading, a comment that speaks volumes about the
child’s relationship with her busy mother and is typical of the sharp, focused
economy of the writing. In a drama about a lonely old man, Muillican’s Synth
would be an ageing dog going feral that needs to be put down – and is discussed
in similar terms here – but in Humans
this situation is given an extra, unnerving dimension because Millican treats
his faltering companion by treating it as if it is human.
The idea is sold by the actors
playing the Synths, who are all exceptional. Their still expressions, unquestioning
compliance with human requests and occasional dialogue like a malfunctioning
computer is a clever way of reinforcing that these facsimiles look real but
aren’t, as are their luminescent eyes (reminiscent of those other alien
interlopers in human form, in the film Village
of the Damned). It’s even more unsettling when the self-aware Synths
develop personalities and human body language as – apart from their eyes – they
can’t be told apart at all.
This is what’s worrying Hobbs. Talk
of the ‘Asimov blocks’ the Synths have, which means they can never harm humans,
is an inevitable reference to the robot stories of the science fiction visionary
and writer Isaac Asimov, who’s First Law of robotics stated that no robot could
ever hurt people. With the Synth population on the verge of outnumbering the
human one and some of them going rogue, the ‘big’ story in Humans suggests that mankind’s time may be up. This part of the
set-up is, it has to be said, a hackneyed sci-fi idea, having been featured in
everything from Blade Runner to Doctor Who, but Humans’ skill is that it
uses the recognisably domestic to symbolise the story’s wider implications and,
so far, this part of the series is the most compelling.
It was the same with Humans’ marketing campaign. Over the
last few weeks, an advert for Synths appeared in the commercial breaks in and
between programmes on Channel 4. It speaks volumes that I didn’t automatically dismiss
the bogus ad as a stunt. ‘Really?’ I remember thinking. ‘Surely not…’ The
near-possibility of synthetic, servile humans is what makes Humans the most compelling piece of
sci-fi to have come along in some time.
Gotta make way for the homo superior?
We shall see.
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