Do You Remember? Almost Human

With actor Michael Ealy now starring in the new ABC drama Stumptown and actor Karl Urban recently starring in the streaming series The Boys airing on Amazon, it seemed like the right time to remind our readers that those two handsome men starred in the short-lived FOX sci-fi-crime cyperpunk drama Almost Human, which debuted on November 17, 2013.

In 2048, the uncontrollable evolution of science and technology has caused crime rates to rise an astounding 400%. To combat this, the overwhelmed police force has implemented a new policy: every human police officer is paired with a lifelike combat-model android.

John Kennex (Karl Urban), a troubled detective, has a reason to hate these new robot partners. Almost two years previously, Kennex and his squad were raiding the hideout of a violent gang known as The Syndicate, but ended up being ambushed and outgunned. Kennex tried to save his badly injured partner, but the accompanying logic-based android officer abandoned them both because the wounded man’s chances of survival were low and it wouldn’t have been “logical” to save him. An explosion then took off Kennex’s leg and killed his partner.

After waking up from a 17-month coma, Kennex has to deal with a cybernetic prosthetic leg and huge gaps in his memory, which he tries to recover through visits to a black market memory-recovery doctor called a Recollectionist, in the city slums. Besides trying to remember as much as he can about the raid and The Syndicate, he is also coming to terms with being abandoned by his ex-girlfriend Anna.

Kennex is then recalled to the force by Captain Sandra Maldonado (Lili Taylor), and partnered with a standard-issue MX-43 android, which he soon throws from a moving vehicle, when it threatens to report his unusual behavior. He is then assigned a replacement android, an older DRN model originally decommissioned for police work and about to be transferred to the Spact Station.

Created to be as close to human as possible, the DRN androids have trouble dealing with some of their own emotional responses, which was the reason they were replaced by the logic-based MX units. Kennex’s unit, known as Dorian (Michael Ealy), immediately proves himself unique, with a clear dislike of being referred to as a “synthetic,” and a dry, friendly sarcasm-oriented wit.

The key cast members included Minka Kelly as Detective Valerie Stahl, another detective serving under Captain Maldonado, and a love interest for Kennex. She is a Chrome, a human genetically engineered for beauty, excellence and success. Other Chromes consider her choice of profession to be a waste of potential; Michael Irby (The Unit, SEAL Team and Mayans M.C.) and Mackenzie Crook portrayed Technician Rudy Lom.

Some of the guest stars on Almost Human included:

Mekia Cox (who has gone on to appear in Chicago Med; and ironically appeared in another short-lived drama Secrets and Lies alongside Michael Ealy);

Patrick Sabongui (who has recurred on The Flash and Arrow);

Benito Martinez (who has appeared in Supernatural, The Blacklist, How to Get Away With Murder and 13 Reasons Why);

Michael Eklund (who has appeared on Wynonna Earp and Continuum);

Alessandro Juliani (who has appeared in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Battlstar Galactica);

Kavan Smith (who is a regular on When Calls the Heart and a Stargate alum);

Sarah-Jane Redmond (who has appeared in The 100 and Siren);

Emilie Ullerup (who is a regular on Chesapeake Shores and a Sancturay alum);

Almost Human ran for 13 episodes with the final episode airing on March 3, 2014. The order of the episodes that aired on FOX differed from the order intended by J.H. Wyman, the show’s showrunner. However, due to the largely self-contained nature of the episodes, that did not create significant discontinuity issues; but it did created unevenness in the scenes between Kennex and Dorian. FOX officially canceled the show on April 29, 2014.

Here is the trailer for Almost Human:

You can also visit the FOX website for the series here.

Do you remember Almost Human?