Almost Human is almost decent
Almost Human, the hybrid sci-fi cop show about android patrol officers partnered with the flesh-and-blood kind, hasn’t exactly set the TV world on fire. It has managed to cling to life, though, and where’s there’s life there’s always the possibility of a second season.
Monday’s episode treads similar ground to the leaner, tougher — and cancelled — Caprica. The story focuses on disaffected teens who, numbed by their wired, techsavvy, plugged-in society, turn to designer drugs and you-are-there VR games for kicks.
A pair of high-school kids overdose on a new, complex street drug that’s coded to act specifically on the user’s DNA. Drugs designed to react to one’s DNA is a clever idea sci-fi idea, an idea that’s both fascinating and frightening. Given the leaps and bounds in science today, it hardly seems beyond the realm of possibility.
Like so much about Almost Human, though, the idea is more interesting than the story execution. Almost Human is a show about ideas, and it’s made slickly enough that it keeps the viewer’s attention. It’s just that it could be more than it is.
Given time — Monday’s episode is the ninth of a projected 13; the season finale is March 3 — Almost Human might find the right tone and become more than it is right now: an experimental curiosity. There’s a lot of talk about how today’s TV drama is more engaging and sophisticated than many of today’s big-screen movies, but Almost Human is not in Gattaca or District 9’s league — yet.
Last week’s episode, which introduced John Larroquette in a spoiler-ish role, hinted at a division of society and made numerous references to “the Wall” — again, shades of District 9 — which may well play a role in the episodes that remain.
Show creator J.H. Wyman helped create Fringe in a past life; it was a dystopian sci-fi series that survived five seasons and proved that, despite TV’s relentless pace and the limitations of a TV budget, the small screen has the advantage of regular, flesh-and-blood characters.
Almost Human is still working on its human and semi-human characters — Karl Urban as the fleshand-blood John Kennex and Michael Ealy as Kennex’s half-human, half-synthetic sidekick and patrol partner Dorian — but, week by week, it’s getting there.
■ Less frantic this season but no less disturbing, The Following continues on its murderous path with Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) reeling from last week’s latest revelation in the case. It helps, too, that The Following has done away with the children-injeopardy trope this season. For now, anyway. (CTV/Fox)
■ Many of the late-night comedians are taking the week off, but not Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel welcomes Joel Kinnaman — you know him from The Killing — and a relative unknown who goes by the name of Julia Roberts, on Jimmy Kimmel Live! (City, ABC)
■ Not one to be outdone in the work-ethic department, Jon Stewart welcomes Modern Family’s Ty Burrell to The Daily Show, to kick off a week of new shows. (CTV, Comedy)