What’s Worth Watching: There’s Nothing Artificial About AMC’s Humans

Humans (Series premiere Sunday, June 28, 9/8c, AMC)

There’s nothing artificial about the intelligence and unsettling suspense of Humans, a quietly devastating sci-fi parable (coproduced with Britain’s Channel 4) in which “Synths”—synthetic humanoid robots—have integrated fully into everyday domestic life. The eerily beautiful Anita (Gemma Chan), bought as a family’s housekeeper/nanny against wife Laura’s (Katherine Parkinson) objections, appears to be part of an evolving Synth subculture with its own sentient consciousness, which leads one observer to worry: “Do you think they will still want to be slaves?” The Twilight Zone‘s Rod Serling couldn’t have put it better, and Humans feels like that sort of instant and very humanistic classic.