A satisfying renewal and a sour cancellation have taken place this summer. Good news first. AMC, and its international production partners Channel 4 and Kudos, has greenlit a second season of Humans. The show about people cohabitating with androids (or Synths) will return for an eight-episode second season next year.
“We’re so pleased to announce a second season of Humans,” AMC & Sundance TV original programming president Joel Stillerman said in a statement. “As one of the year’s top new cable series, Humans has been embraced by fans and critics across the U.S. and UK. We’re looking forward to continuing this very captivating story and further exploring the show’s parallel, Synth-filled world that hits so disturbingly close to home.”
It didn’t take long for Humans to strike a chord with viewers, myself included. The series takes place in a future that doesn’t seem like it’s that far away from now. How would your family react to an extremely life-like robot taking up space in your home? Humans works because it tells a tantalizingly grounded story that is inherently complex as it is relatable. It asks lofty questions about what it means to be alive and conscious, and it does with with a lineup of unabashedly good-looking Synths. Leading the pack is family servant Anita, played to perfection by Gemma Chan. Her robotic nature in tandem with her spurts of humanity lend to a captivating performance.
AMC airs the Humans first season finale this Sunday, Aug. 2 at 9pm.
Getting the axe is FX freshman comedy The Comedians starring veteran Billy Crystal and the rising Josh Gad. EP Ben Wexler made the news official in a tweet: “#TheComedians is cancelled at FX. I could not be more proud of the work we all did.”
I happened to enjoy watching Crystal and Gad play TV versions of themselves. Also, having worked in TV production, pretty much all of the scenes that took place in the production offices (including the writers’ room, the break room, etc.) were flat-out riots. In addition to being funny, The Comedians eventually slid into a particular groove of matching the laughs with heart. Crystal turned out to be a solid mentor for Gad, the young and in comparison inexperienced comic. If there’s anything to take away from the first and only season of this series, though, it’s that Stephanie Weir is a comedic force to be reckoned with, and she deserves more time in the spotlight. The Mad TV alum was featured in some outrageously funny sequences here, and I can’t wait to see what she does next.