‘Almost Human’ Airs Its First Missing Episode as Mid-Season Finale

It may not be the Almost Human mid-season finale that many fans had hoped for, but it sure is a strong end-of-the-year finish, nevertheless. With two DRNs (Michael Elay), an annoyed Kennex (Karl Urban) and a never-before-seen crime, creator J.H. Wyman is tempting audiences to tune in next year, to find out the full story behind a certain Detectives mysterious ex-girlfriend. The question now is: will you?

In this weeks episode, Arrhythmia, written by Alison Schapker (Fringe, Alias), Kennex and Dorian take on a case of a man who somehow knew the exact time of his own death, which leads televisions new duo into the highly-evolved world of black market organs. As the source of the bio-mechanical organs begins to be revealed and Dorians new friend, DRN 494, rejects a return to service its a rush to find out who, exactly, is behind all of these transplants before the rest of their clientele is switched off, once and for all.

For a series filled with as many hidden gems (read: actors) from the big screen, it cant be easy to highlight a character story without sacrificing the overall quality, or pacing, of whatever the task is at hand; and its almost impossible to do it without introducing new characters that would likely have to return, at some point. So what Almost Human pulled off by doubling Michael Elay is quite ingenious; how they pulled it off both visually as well as logically is even more so.

Both Kennex and Dorian havent really evolved all that much from the beginning. Their ability to work as a team, however, has, and yet the series still relies on Dorian carry much of weight, as far character development goes, to push Kennex (or himself) in to revealing more about the man (or machine) we now watch each week. In this episode, Dorian finds a like-minded friend in DRN 494, so now many of the internal conversations that Dorian would merely have in his own mechanized mind are now presented outward, to himself, or at least a version that could have been, if things would have been different.

Synthetic or not, Dorian truly is the heart and soul of this series and, as the series title suggest, is the only one looking inward, as well as outward, to better understand his place in a world filled with humans who, while being able to feel and emote, largely do anything but. Still, much of Dorians way of thinking can be considered idealistic, and in world where anything is but ideal, there are some harsh truths that he must come to terms with. Dorians earnest intent in reviving a decommissioned DRN allowed him to connect with an alternative version of himself, to see that, though intent is everything even in saving a little boys life the rules and laws that are put upon synthetics can quickly result in the loss of the life he was built for, and which hes interested in pursuing more of.

The story of this weeks episode, too, built the series up even more. Though weve see a few instances of futuristic crimes in past episodes, this is the first one that felt as if it could have supported a feature-length runtime, and its a terrific example of how creative minds can use a television budget to continuously create familiar, yet unique, futuristic tales with striking visual effects. After all the wondering of what may come from the airing of Almost Humans missing episodes (2, 3 & 4), it now appears to be more calculation-based than anything conspiracy-related.

Arrhythmia may very well be the sixth episode to air, but it is actually the third episode to be film and perhaps the series strongest episode yet. Whether it be because of the additional visual effects needing more time, or J.H. Wymans calculated scheduling of episodes or both the mysterious case of missing episodes has all but come to end. Its now very unlikely that episodes 2 and 4 are being hidden away because of issues relating quality, but because the series is not yet ready to delve into the weighty story of Kennex and his ex-girlfriend.

See the original post:
‘Almost Human’ Airs Its First Missing Episode as Mid-Season Finale