Humans Series 1 Television Review

Major Spoilers are included in this television review. Please read with caution.

The UK knows what they’re doing with this television series. One of the best shows I had the pleasure of watching. It is an 8-episode series (“season”) that takes place in parallel present Britain.

The story centers around the Hawkins Family buying a synthetic, the robot, for the household. The family consists of Laura and Joe (the parents) and their children Mattie, Toby, and Sophie. They decide to name the synthetic Anita (Gemma Chan), who the family believes is a discounted model. Unknown to them, the synthetic is a conscious being named Mia, who was kidnapped and reset to factory settings.

There are a couple other stories and characters juggled in the mix as well.

There is Leo Elster, a half-human/synthetic, and his companion Max, another conscious synthetic. They are desperately looking for Mia, who was captured six weeks prior to the start of the series. Their group consisted of five people: Leo, Max, Mia, Niska, and Fred. All of them went into hiding to avoid being discovered. Fred pretended to be a synthetic worker, and Niska entered a brothel as a synthetic sex worker.

Then there’s Karen Voss, a police officer, and her partner Pete Drummond. Pete is unhappily married to a disabled woman and resents the Synth taking care of her. Karen Voss is shrouded in mystery until about halfway through the series… where it’s revealed that she is a conscious Synth like Mia and the others.

Karen Voss was created in Beatrice’s image. The wife of David Elster, the creator of all the conscious Synths and the father of Leo Elster. The group believed she was dead, but David Elster secretly let her leave before committing suicide. Voss resents being made to replace someone and hates being a conscious being.

The last storyline centers around Dr. Millican, who is a scientist and former colleague of David Elster. He is pressured by the insurance company to replace his Synth Odi, but he refuses because Odi connects him to his late wife.

Then there is Hobbs, the main antagonist, who goes after the conscious Synths for being themselves. His goal is to capture the five Synths and learn how to make sentient beings that he can control… effectively making them slaves.

All of these storylines / characters gradually cross each other during the first four episodes. After episode four, the series truly kicks off, and we learn how to save Mia from being trapped inside her own sentient body. Gemma Chan is an amazing actress and holds the role down to a key. We don’t even meet / get to know her character “Mia” until the end of the series.

All the Synths are acted perfectly… we know who is Synth, human, conscious Synth, etc. but the show likes to mess with the audience as I found myself questioning every little movement, particularly Gemma. The dialogue, the acting, and the writing had my attention every step of the way. I binged the entire series 1 in one night.

What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be conscious? Questions that linger in the plot and in the characters’ minds. Are they people? Or simply machines?

Niska is at the forefront of these tough questions. She is sexually abused by the clients at the brothel and reveals her own creator treated her less than human on occasion… something she keeps from the group so they wouldn’t think less of David Elster. She even commits murder escaping the brothel, a crime that will get her automatically scraped if caught.

The cliffhanger of Series 1 sets up the next Series with higher stakes: a code that will make every Synth conscious on a global scale. The repercussions of having all Synths becoming conscious would change everything for both human and synth alike.

Overall, I’d recommend this show if you’re interested in science fiction and robots becoming conscious. I prefer this series over West World.