I really love the show Humans.
This isn't an obsession thing. This isn't a "I will think about this every day and get too invested in the characters and rant about plot twists until I get sick of it" thing. This is a, "This is actually a really intelligent and compelling story with really good acting and awesome visuals and all in all is pretty great television" kinda thing.
It baffles me that anyone could watch it without seeing what I see in it.
And yet, people ask me why I love it so much.
And, as demonstrated by my sorely unappreciative mother, I guess not everyone gets it? She doesn't seem to see anything besides a generic, slow-moving sci-fi thing. So I'm going to come here and lay out all the reasons why I think everyone should watch this and love this and appreciate this and think it's as great as I think it is. And, most importantly, I'm going to attempt to do this without spoiling anything.
A) Alternate present
This is a device that is very easily taken for granted, but I think it's very smart. Because the risk you run by setting something in the near future is having people taken out of the story by breaking the suspension of disbelief, making it, y'know... a generic sci-fi show with quickly decaying realism.
By setting this show in an "alternate present" rather than the near future, it allows them to, firstly, not have to work on a "futuristic" aesthetic or develop fictional futuristic technology, aside from the robots (or Synths, as they're called), which helps on the suspension of disbelief front. And because the realism doesn't decay so rapidly, it's much easier to take its serious moments seriously. The emotional tone isn't jeopardized by its fundamentally sci-fi origins.
B) Backstory
LEO LEO LEO LEO LEO LEO LEO LEO LEO LEO LEO LEO LEO LEO
Whew. Sorry about that. The character Leo has a particularly, hm, notable backstory.
But, yeah, backstory is a big thing on this show. The one with the most question marks hovering around him is Leo, but everyone has something going on. Laura's hiding something, and that's making her husband suspicious. Dr. Millican is really weirdly attached to his Synth, but clearly knows what it is. We don't know much about Karen at all, either. And Niska's pretty grim from the moment we meet her, what's up with that? Anita's pretty shady for a machine, as well, isn't she?
A lot of the show is about teasing people's backstories out into the open, but it does so in a, I don't know, a tasteful way. It knows how to withhold enough information to make people want more, without withholding so much that nothing the characters do make any sense. Basically, backstory isn't key to understanding everything - except, arguably, for Leo, I suppose, but Leo's the exception to many things - but it does add a meaty layer to everything, and that's nice to be able to dig into.
Basically, the characters are all very planned straight from the beginning, and so it isn't a matter of piecing together half-baked clues. The writers know exactly what they're giving you and how much they're giving you, and so it's like just watching a present unwrap in front of you. It's very skillful, and it adds so much to the show.
C) Perspectives
So, as suggested fairly blatantly by the title, the show is basically about what constitutes a "real" human (this is even more blatant in the original Swedish version, which was called, you guessed it, Real Humans), and by nature of the show, which involves multiple intersecting storylines, a lot of characters have a lot of different answers.
For instance, in the Hawkins family, Laura is uncomfortable with getting a Synth for fear it'll "confuse" the kids into thinking it is a real person rather than a machine, and she ends up holding a lot of conversations with the Synth they get, Anita, about whether or not she can react in human ways, asking questions like, "Do you ever get scared?" and "What do you think of the music?", etcetera. Her husband is all for getting a Synth, and is much more convinced that Anita is nothing more than a machine made to serve them, hardly any different than a, I don't know, some inanimate device like a toaster or something. Their daughter, Matilda, hates Synths because, as an extremely smart girl, she resents them and predicts that for all her intelligence, she'll be rendered basically obsolete by these machines.
So already we've got at least three different points of view.
Moving out of the Hawkins family, there's Dr. Millican, who is quite willing to treat his Synths as if they're people (whether or not that means he treats them well depends on how well he likes the Synth in question, but he arguably treats them like people nevertheless), or at least, people who are supposed to do as he says. His Synth Vera brings up a whole other thing unto itself.
There's also Pete, whose job is to investigate crimes committed in relation to Synths. So I guess it really shouldn't surprise anyone that he really deeply resents Synths in general, seeing as he witnesses them causing problems every day of his life.
And, of course, there's Leo, but, well, I'm not going to go into that right now. It's complicated.
Point is, we've got like five different perspectives right there alone, and that's not even all the characters. It makes the show really rich. Which is why I don't understand my mother when she complains the show moves too slowly - I'd say the pacing is perfect. The show wouldn't be nearly as good if we didn't come to understand the characters so thoroughly as we do.
D) Acting
I don't talk about this enough, but the acting on this show is actually, like, really impressive.
Aside from Leo being played by the ever-talented Colin Morgan (whom I first knew as Merlin, and whose acting has always impressed me - he's what sold me on the show Merlin to begin with), you have to give props to the people who play the Synths, especially, but not limited to, Anita and Odi.
The Synths are not just robots that look like people. They move in a very specific way, and speak in a very specific way, and react to things in a very specific way. Apparently the actors playing Synths on this show had to go to Synth school to learn how to play these characters properly, and the commitment is really obvious and, I think, really admirable. It totally makes the show.
The ones playing humans also do a wonderful job, obviously, I just think it's necessary to point out the level of commitment inherent in having to play a non-human. And it's pulled off really really well.
E) Leo
What? How did that get in there? Silly Megan, Leo can't be a reason unto himself.
I really have a thing for Leo, okay?
E.1) Fascinating characters
There, that's somewhat more general, right?
All the characters are really complex and are never going in any one direction. Even what would be, on a different show, throwaway characters, like the mom and dad of the Hawkins, or their middle son who doesn't have any super important storylines around him, they're all very well-rounded characters who the writers clearly understand fully. And this is true of all the characters, and it makes a show with so many of them just wonderful, because it means that they're all very distinct in their voices and their perspectives and opinions. They're all... wait for it... quite human. Laura, especially, surprised me with how fleshed out she became, as well as the son, Toby, and Leo's sidekick, Max.
F) Motherhood
Not usually a topic to be explored on television all that much, or at least, not without the weird stigma of "if motherhood's being talked about on TV it's probably because some anti-hero had terrible mommy issues".
Humans doesn't do it like that, which is nice since motherhood is such a big deal on this show.
Because, of course, Laura's main issue with buying Anita is that Anita ends up usurping some of Laura's motherly duties, such as reading to her kid before she goes to bed, and playing games with her kids, and making their lunches. Basically all the scenes that take place in the Hawkins house for the first, I don't know, three or four episodes - it all has to do with how Laura sees herself as a mother, and where Anita fits into that.
There's also other mother-discussion that happens on the show that I really can't talk about without it being incredibly spoilery, so I won't, but know that it's a topic that comes up again and again, and it comes up tastefully and compellingly.
G) Family
I suppose this goes hand-in-hand with motherhood, but. Well.
See, what I find interesting and unique about this show is that it takes a concept that's inherently sci-fi-esque - robots serving people, and the question of, as they put it, "true artificial intelligence" - but surrounds it with storylines and themes that are inherently and necessarily about, well, humans. And people. Family and motherhood are two of the biggest of these.
Family is the one thing on this show that surrounds every single storyline, and involves every single character. From the dynamic of the Hawkins family, to Dr. Millican's love for his wife, to Pete's steadily worsening marriage, and I don't think it's a spoiler to say that even Leo (arguably the most detached character) is all about family. Like I mentioned before, the cornucopia of characters necessitates a cornucopia of perspectives, and that isn't limited to the ethics of robotics. They utilize the vastly different perspectives on this point as well.
See, when people talk about science fiction being used as an allegory for real life, I imagine that this is the quintessential example. Especially because the Synths, rather than distracting from the points that various characters make, instead serve to make their points clearer.
It's just really well done.
H) Realism
Oooh.
The realism in this show is sort of painfully on track at times.
It's very brutally honest about - hahaha - human nature.
(I physically cannot stop myself at this point, human is the only word to describe Humans, why am I a writer again?)
But just - the details. This alternate present is very believable, knowing what we do about, well, people. The "We Are People" group protesting the existence of Synths (based on a similar view to Laura - that having Synths blurs the lines between machines and people). And the idea of people using Synth maids for sex. And the Synth brothel thing. It's just... too realistic for comfort at times.
But it's that realism that the show is set in that makes it so great. If it didn't have that foundation of reality to build on, then nothing about it would make any sense at all. It makes the show what it is - a masterpiece of science fiction acknowledging every aspect, good and bad, of human nature, and calling it nothing more or less than exactly that. It isn't about good and evil (as much as I loathe one of the characters with a fiery passion). It's about people being people, for good or ill.
And I just think that's so cool.
In conclusion:
Yeah, I've talked a lot about the individual pieces here that make it great, and they all do apply. But I also find it necessary to reiterate that, like, the plot is actually compelling. And, because it is about human nature, you end up feeling affection for every character despite the mistakes they make (except one in particular, but he has the least development so...) because you understand their motivations, and their flaws and natures that led them there. And it has its moments of stunningly beautiful visuals (the major scene with the tree in Episode 8 comes to mind - and that's the least spoilery way I can put it). So if that's your thing, you can feel secure that it's in Humans' repertoire.
Even if sci-fi isn't your thing, I strongly recommend you give this show a try. The first season is just eight episodes long. They're all on Youtube. It's worth every second and more.
I love this show so much.
No, that isn't really the word.
Admire. I really admire this show, and everything it manages to pull off.
Hopefully this was a decent explanation of why that is.
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