I have not read any
reviews of this show yet. I want to just
document some thoughts and personal speculations about Fox’s Almost Human before I watch it. It’s like a fun guessing game to see how
close my guesses are, if I‘m close or way off—because I’ve seen the promos for
the show enough times to do it.
I decided to give
this show a try. I am curious as to how
the main human cop character will interact with his new synthetic partner
Dorian.
The concept of
synthetic humans is as possible as the existence of a synthetic hand or
arm. The popular idea a lot of people
have about robots and androids is that they don’t have emotions, or don’t have
the ability to understand them.
Simulating human emotions is not the same as understanding them or why they happen. So I am also curious as to what the Dorian
character will be like. According to the
promos on TV, he seems to have a sense of humor as well as a grasp of
sarcasm. Often for a new drama series,
Fox shows some of the funny bits of the show, usually something one character
says to the other.
Often this type of
show makes me think of the relationship dynamic of Detective Spooner and the
android non-partner Sonny in the film I,
Robot. Of course, Sonny was
different from all the other NS-5s and displayed those differences clearly,
from expressing anger to understanding trust (using the wink signal he learned
from Detective Spooner.)
The character
Dorian strikes me as more “synthetic human” than “android.” His skin tone is human and his voice doesn’t
sound mechanical or tinny like many robots do.
It sounds just like he’s flesh and blood. He is able to smile and appear warm and
friendly, reaching out to shake hands with Detective Kennex.
Part of one promo
shows an android cop on the ground and out of commission. Even before reading any reviews or synopses
of this show this is my guess as to what this show is about, based on seeing
the downed android cop: Android partners
for cops and detectives are less likely to survive dangerous encounters because
they don’t have the emotions necessary for self-preservation (fear, for one)
and the emotional connection to effectively protect his human partner when he
is in danger (brotherhood, friendship, even love). So, Dorian is an experimental version of the
android cops, made to be more of a synthetic human, instead of a robotic and
cold humanoid machine. He may even be a
prototype, and be observed by the authorities?
The synergy between the partners needs to be as close to fully human as
possible. So Detective Kennex is the guy
with which they are going to try out this experiment. Maybe this cop gets into a lot of trouble and
gets his android partners killed often, and it costs the police facility loads
of money. Dorian may be an answer for
saving money and creating more effective android or synthetic partners for the
police.
I am curious to
find out about Dorian’s origin. I’ll
have to watch Almost Human to find
out, won’t I? And along the way, I want
to see how wrong or how right I am about my guesses as to what this show is
actually about. I’m excited about it!
Does
anyone else have thoughts or feeling about this new show? You may share them in the comments or email
me through Blogger.
