Almost Human—the cloning one

The challenge of making a good sci-fi show is taking thoughtful risks. That doesn’t mean the story has to be so complicated it leaves the dumb masses behind, but without a future where technology has changed morality, you’ve got another generic cop show with electric cars and quieter guns.

The drugs-are-bad episode, terrorism episode, heist episode and fuckbots episode were decent but not nearly as interesting as they could’ve been.

And now the cloning episode.

The plot we got was a literal genius who was faking being good in the eyes of the world but was really a villain, because he killed the doctor who helped clone him a few times. The story involves him and his clone family trying to kill a witness to the crime, a ditzy broad who looks like a 1980s Madonna and who is psychic from a brain-boosting process (a story in itself). The tight-(hair)-bunned cop-boss character is explored a little more but that’s really the only thing new.

A better plot would have had the good guy be likable while an unseen killer picked off the clones, causing the good guy to expose him-selves to the cops. Why was cloning conveniently made illegal 20 years earlier? Why did this guy clone himself, was it to beat an incurable disease? Do clones have legal rights? Is killing a clone considered murder?

This is the first episode where we really see Dorian’s awesome robopower as he catches up to a speeding electro-van and flips it like a cheese omelette (causing it to explode, even though it has no gas engine).

We the audience were kind-of prepped for this when earlier an MX-43 bragged about being able to lift a metric ton. I didn’t like this new information because it made Kennex look ignorant. If you didn’t know your robot buddy could lift a car, you might call in human first responders, needlessly putting them in the line of fire.

The MXs are as useless as stormtroopers. They’re supposed to provide a cold, glaring contrast to “crazy” warm Dorian, but their design is not well thought-out.

If an MX-43 can effortlessly carry a metric ton, they should all be walking around with 200 extra pounds of body armor, especially since every episode the bad guys get the jump on them. MX headwear is clearly not bulletproof, as their heads always get blown apart like rock candy.

It’s not necessary to build humanoid robots so that their recording devices are fragile chips of glass in their rock candy skulls…the head should have sensors-only while recording modules used as evidence should be heavily shielded in the robots’ torsos.  Sorry for the nerd shit, but it has to be said.

I don’t care about the hot girl cop, do you? We’ve seen McCoy break into a cold sweat in a showroom of fuckbots, why would he care about a human woman? (Prediction:  later in the season, when he’s ready to close the deal, the evil Insyndicate girlfriend will come along to ruin everything).

We also learned this week that Dorian has a giant robocock. The patrol car cop-buddy banter gets amusingly gayer every week.

Almost Human Episodes — the drugs one and the Die Hard one

I am a fan of Almost Human.  Like I said before (but it’s new to you) since I have no future, shows about the future are always amusing/entertaining.

No sooner had I written about the fuckbots episode when another appeared! While not quite a Die Hard ripoff, the episode where terrorists take over a building ripped-off Die Hard, though done well enough.  Halfway through the terrorists thew some poor Asian (Lou?) out the window before (mercifully?) shooting him in the face.  Pretty hardcore for regular TV.

Dorian proves his metal mettle at the end by taking out those bastards.

 

The drugs episode was OK, kind of a letdown after the hostage tension of last week.  The British nerd tech gets an increased role.  He looks awfully like a living model of the mascot of this comic strip. 

For the libertarian-minded, allow me to answer the question why 35 years in the future drugs are STILL not legalized, taxed and regulated:  because our esteemed government–among others–would come down on the show for not parroting the Party Line, which is Drug Prohibition and driving tanks through people’s front doors is the only way we’ll stop drugs.

Dorian’s fight with the Russianbot was OK.  The bots seem to be stronger than humans but not by much.  

I thought it was cool when McCoy put a round through that evil cop’s head.  That should ALWAYS happen to shit-talking villains in custody.

That’s it.  I’m not going to start writing about The Blacklist, though I watch that one and Person of Interest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dexter’s Series Finale

I’ve waited this long to address the series finale of Dexter. 

Normally “laziness” would be the #1 reason why but in this case it’s such a POS (piece of shit) ending it’s not worth even this bit of commentary.

I have no interest in proving how valid my theory is on why it ended on such a sour note, but here it is:

You have a series where the two leads–playing brother and sister in the Dexterverse–MARRY and DIVORCE in real life.

Carpenter has been a pretty good sport about the whole thing, but she’s also fed up with being typecast as Deb, a character she’s played for almost ten years, and done so well that people on the street call her Deb.

It was Carpenter who’d had enough, who demanded Deb be killed off. She didn’t want a Dexter feature film two years later, didn’t want anything to do with it, and so Hall, who probably also had enough, agreed to the shitty ending. According to the wiki, they knew what the ending would be even before Season 7 started.

That’s pretty much it.

I still love Dexter and simply forget Season 8 ever took place.