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Reviews
The After (2014)
With good all round performances, and a suggestion that the show is headed in some dark and interesting directions will keep me watching for now.
For months "X-Files" fans have been talking up a storm on the internet about Chris Carter's return to television with a new show called: "The After". Unfortunately he choose to align the TV series with Amazon, who are famous for bad pilot episodes anyone else remember the Zombie Land pilot episode? *Cringes* For those of you who do not know Chris Carter, he was the golden boy of 90′s television after creating The X Files franchise which instantly became a cult classic. He never really delivered another show to equal that of the X Files, he came pretty close with crime drama Millennium. But even that only truly became popular after the series was finished.
"The After" begins right at the very moment the apocalypse hits earth. By apparent manipulated circumstance, a group of eight strangers with the exact same birth dates are thrown together when the power goes out in their building. The group consists of a gay clown, a tough Latina policewoman, a French bombshell, a drunk Irishman, and a rich old white lady. Which really does sound like the start of a very bad joke And being ignorant human beings they are they think that they are the only ones affected by this "power outage" They then try to break out of an underground parkade, only to discover that there is far more wrong with the world than just a simple power outage..
The pilot episode of "The After" is exactly what you would expect from any apocalypse themed drama. Mass chaos everywhere, the police have lost control of the situation obviously. There are people everywhere trying to get out of the city and no one really knows what's going on, including us the viewers which I really loved as they only really revealed some of the key plot elements during the last few minutes of the show. The first episode of the show plays its cards closely too its chest which caused me to scream out in frustration multiple times because I wanted to know what type of apocalypse has befallen our characters and fictional world.
During the course of the episode Chris Carter throws in the suggestion that the supernatural is at play and though some of it feels a bit rushed in the plot episode, the closing scene feels like something strait out of an X Files episode, it's reminiscent of a really great opening for an "X-Files" episode. I really want this show to succeed. Chris Carter has provided some solid entertainment in the past, and X Files had a few really iconic/classic standalone episodes. With good all round performances, and a suggestion that the show is headed in some dark and interesting directions will keep me watching for now. So let's see were this show goes hopefully not the same direction as the Zombie Land pilot.
Almost Human (2013)
Solid performances from both Urban and Early.
I was a bit weary after hearing that J.J. Abrams is working on a new TV series called: "Almost Human" partly because of the failure that was Revolution the TV series his production company is involved in. Also the fact that Almost Human started late when compared to the other news shows on television also counted against it, but I am happy to report that it was absolutely worth the wait. It is easy for Sci-Fi based shows these days to fall short of the premise they promised to the people who are watching it, but luckily Almost Human does not fall into this trap. The pilot episode starts out with a bang, and is easily one of the year's best new Sci-Fi shows on television.
The show stars Karl Urban of Star Trek and Judge Dredd fame who plays John Kennex, a cop in the near future of 2048. After being almost killed during a terrorist ambush he wakes up 17 months later with one of his leg amputated and dealing with the loss of his partner and the respect of the police force he once worked for, he sets out to prove himself in a world were crime now has risen over 400%. Cops are now required to work with android partners out in the field, Kennex is less than happy about teaming up with an android. As he blames one of these "synthetics" for the loss of his partner during the attack that put him in a coma.
After "accidentally" destroying the android he was given, he is paired up with an older "special" DRN model named: "Dorian" played brilliantly by Michael Ealy. The older DRN's were designed to be more human- like than their emotionless replacements, and were decommissioned due to "bugs" in their emotional programming. Karl Urban brings the same gruff demeanor we know and love that we see in his movies, the last time be played in a television show was Xena Warrior Princess believe it or not! Michael Ealy is the perfect counterpoint to Karl Urban's gruff demeanor and makes for perfect chemistry between the two leads.
Lucky for us the writers do not fall into the same trap as other shows by forcing the two main characters differing ideologies and attitudes down our throats at each possible turn. By the end of the first episode Kennex and Dorian are more comfortable working together and appear to be a good team of human and android, and they even manage to crack a few jokes while on the job. What also sets this show apart from the current selection of television shows is the phenomenal attention and high value production designs. The world of Almost Human feels almost real and it is amazing that such a high level of production value can be achieved with a television budget.
Solid performances from both Urban and Early, smart writing from J.J. Abrams and J.H. Wyman, and intriguing story elements, Almost Human is sure to bring us some good television entertainment in the near future. For fans of Sci-Fi genre this is an absolute must see show, overall Almost Human pilot episode was incredibly impressive, well worth my time to watch, and one of the best new Sci-Fi shows in recent memory.