She did say "How can we afford it" and he said there was a special deal. I think he said that it was not much more than a car would cost.



Presumably that whoever gave them sentience also provided the moral code or else they derived it through the literature they read. It does seem to me that a lot of morality issues are ingrained on us through the society we have grown up with so for a Synth to share them is odd without some external guiding hand.

I guess that guiding hand didn't have a problem with summary execution/murder though


Those flashbacks did make me think that, actually. That maybe there's a human consciousness implanted somehow and that the flashbacks and yearning for a child are part of that.

I think in many ways, I am sympathising with the apparent baddies here. I do think that regular synths are just machines and that there is nothing inherently wrong with using them as such. I'm not going to start wondering whether it's ok to get in my car and drive somewhere or whether my car might feel abused by constantly being at my beck and call!

I also would be hugely worried at the prospect of some kind of sentience being allowed to infect all of the machinery I depend on to the point where it might decide not to work for me or, even worse, try to supplant me (or muder me!).

Whatever anthropomorphic feelings I might want to ascribe to these awakened synths, and I'm sure the show will give us plenty of opportunity to feel sympathy for them, the fact is they are too dangerous to be allowed to function without safeguards. In reality I would be wholly in favour of hunting them down and deactivating them with extreme prejudice!

Yes, it might be well wide off the mark, but there are enough clues to hint that these might not be robots but instead are human beings which have been tampered with.

The way in which they act when we are shown fleeting glimpses of their memories, the prostitute robot having emotional reactions which she should surely only be able to have based on human social conditioning rather than it being a writing mistake, and the guy last night who it turned out is a cyborg.

Even the show's title might be a clue in itself. 'Humans'.
You could say that it's hidden in plain sight.

Your idea is plausible too, that they are actually dead people and are being exploited for the use of their human thought processes which robots/synths may not be able to replicate.

Me too, I've intended to write something myself based on that idea.
Looks like I missed the boat now because with this series being on it would look like people just trying to copy it even if they weren't.

There's always this perception that if we created AI which was more intelligent than humans it would end up wanting to take over the human race and destroy us all. That is very much a human way of looking at things based on human instinct, desire and paranoia.

Tropes are sometimes good for some things when you set a scene which the audience is familiar with and they enjoy as a premise, but tropes can often become cliches if they don't do anything different with the premise.
I hope that this series doesn't go down the well trodden path we've been down many times before and is a bit different for a change.

I thought he said they were leasing it.......... I could be wrong tho!

Yes I mentioned Robot and Frank earlier in the thread too. It'll be quite an obscure film to many, but it's a good low budget film and character study.

Now you mention it I do now question how unrealistic that would be, and it looks a bit too convenient for the story.
If people did design sentient robots, surely the number one priority to act as a safeguard would be whatever you do, don't at any costs design them so that they can upgrade themselves.

It makes me think that they've set it up this way for a future episode, where along with the information that they can be hacked, somebody is going to create a virus which spreads throughout the synth population. Either to harm humans, or as a resolution to the story where it fixes the synths and makes everything all right again.

I agree with the idea that some of these synths have been given the mind, memories or even more of deceased people. The blonde synth mentioned her father when she reacted to the perve client.

I'm quite enjoying it so far

I thought they might have been human at some point from the way they looked when they were dragged away in the wood and put in the back of the van. I have no reason for this thought other than a feeling. I'm probably way off the mark.

That happened after they were asked how much battery charge they had, they had to make camp and turn on the generator as one only had 11% battery left.

I know I should probably read this thread to find the answers but thought I'd just ask, do we know if we will see the synths back stories properly? With that flashback with Anita, I thought it's probable she was once human, and someone (or something..you get what I mean lol) rewired her or..something (yeah im crap at explaining).

I just think it's such an interesting show that it's making me want to know about the synths before they were synths (if they were human) if all that makes sense XD

Niska has blue blood, and she and all the other synths have glowing eyes - I reckon the 'rogue' synths have had human thoughts and memories transplanted into them (i.e. their bodies are not human) from people who have died. Maybe Anita was in the car and drowned - I think she mentioned something about 'nobody coming' when Sophie was upset, but I may have misheard.

I know someone has mentioned this already too, but I wonder if the 'rogue' synths were an experiment to keep Leo alive, and once his dad had perfected his skills he was able to help Leo stay in his own body. Letting them be taken away would be like letting them die for a second time.

Maybe a bit OTT but it would be interesting if it turned out that Anita's conscience was that of Laura's mum and that's why they were so uncomfortable around each other without realising. Didn't her first flashback occur when looking at the photo album?

OK Folks, if they ever create life like robots, NEVER, EVER
get violent with them.
They are stronger than you.

I meant the way in which TV shows portray paedophile, like it was just an average looking guy who then made a weird request it was someone who already looked odd and off.


I agree, also the 18+ thing he found in her intro pack suggests she just needs to be programmed to have sex with. I don't think Anita has as much free will as the prostitute, it seems her reboot was more permanent. She hasn't for example contacted the Colin Morgan guy yet unlike the others and it would be much easier for her given she has the run of the house.

Watching episode one again with my husband. A certificate is displayed in George's house saying:

Dr G. Millican & Dr D. Elster
Innovation in Engineering Award
1996(?) in Robotic Control

Could Dr D. Elster be Leo's dad? (ETA: Just heard 'David Elster' mentioned as creating the 'rogue' synths)

Also Joe says to Laura something about her parents dying when she was young. In the photo album there's a picture of her in 1985 with her mum, I think. She could be around Sophie's age in the pic. If Anita is really her mum then maybe that's why she feels a special connection to Sophie She has her first flashback of two people clutching each other underwater when she looks at a picture of a woman - Laura or her mum - holding a tiny baby.

Someone said that Anita is destroying the family, but in episode one, Joe says to Toby that he should ride his bike to his friend's house and makes a sarcastic remark about 'that thing with two wheels' (or along those lines) and implies he's never used it, then in episode two they are riding together and having a great time - so they seem to have benefited from having her around.

Conversely, I have noticed that some of the human characters, including Laura, sometimes adopt very robotic looking mannerisms. Te first time in which we saw Neil Maskell's partner, while she was waiting for him in the car, I thought she was a droid.

So agree, both were annoying from the first episode.


If you're referring to Niska (?)< the blond synth that was in the whore house, she does look a bit like the William Hurt's synth (forgotten his name - Idi or something like that).


Good point, so he's a cyborg. Perhaps the others are like that too considering they seem to have memories and some feelings towards other humans.

As for yesterday's episode, not bad, not better than the first one though. I wondered why Anita was still operating at the house in this episode when the last one ended with Laura and Husband saying she didn't like her and he would take Anita back the next day.
Two others minor criticisms: which school pulls a parent in to discuss something the child has done which they have no proof of?! And what was up with the stroppy daughters' ears when the little girl was calling out for her Mum? Or when Anita was tending to her?!!

That said it was a bit of slow build episode as opposed to the opening to characters and the beginning of plots, so it was no wonder that this episode didn't do it for me as the first nearly did. Will be watching next week.

Same here - but I thought it was just me being overly suspicious!

As for what the synths are, I'm still leaning towards 'robots with human memories' side, though wondering whether these are implanted memories or if the cunning AI science involved less fancy programming than we might think and relied more on stealing brains from the morgue...

Just watched episode two again. When Anita is cuddling Sophie after her nightmare, the car in the flashback is a P reg (P856 HWC) - 1996, the same year that George and David Elster got their award.

She says, "For as long as I am with you, no harm will ever come to you," as though it's something she has been told before.

Didnt leon say something about getting the family back? Its their inventor/ creator and his morals, surely?

Me too, he's was on BBC1 in that Jonathan Strange show at the same time as well! And he is an awful actor, I don't know how he continues to get acting work!

Me too.

Do we know what Laura was up to in Leeds?

Another theory. Laura was saved from the sinking car by Anita and the 'rogue' synth who has been caught for testing and keeps sharing the same thought of them swimming underwater again and again. Perhaps Laura will turn out to be a cyborg too

Perhaps the reason that Anita does not want to 'share' with other synths is not just because it will give the game away, perhaps sharing would spread the/a virus. I'm deliberately staying away from any of the information about the Swedish series, as I don't want to know spoilers. I already knew about the cyborg reveal because I read too much. Now the show is caught up to what I know, and what happens next is a mystery.

I missed the show on Sunday but caught up last night. Enjoying it so far and looking forward to next Sunday.

I've got a sort of perverse wish that Vera will turn out to be one of the advanced/sentient/emotional synths, doing a much better job of hiding herself than any of the others.

Which one is Vera? School or Health Worker? I'm terrible remembering names.

I wonder if there are police or military synths? I'm surprised that it's not illegal to have the droids look like humans.