Urban to take lead role in new sci-fi procedural drama.
Human is about an emotionally and physically wounded police officer who gets placed with a robot partner in a near-future LAPD. The characters will be solving crimes and busting bad guys while simultaneously dealing with the drama, humor, and tragedy of having robots on the police force. It’s not a direct adaptation of Asimov’s Caves of Steel, but it’s the same idea.
We first heard about this show last Fall, and with J. J. Abrams in charge of the pilot which was written by Fringe co-creator J.H. Wyman, it seems like it could really make some waves, possibly filling the whole in Fox’s schedule left by the loss of Fringe, their previous sci-fi detective drama.
Now we’ve got word that the cast of the show is filling out, and has found its titular lead in Karl Urban, who has been working with Abrams as Dr. Bones in the new Star Trek films.
The robot partner will be played by Micheal Ealy, who played Vogel on FlashForward a few years back. Urban and Ealy will be joined in the cast by Micheal Irby, a frequent guest star in other television detective shows; Minka Kelly, from Friday Night Lights; and Mackenzie Crook, a character actor who played a goofy pirate in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
With this kind of talent at the lead and the helm, I’m letting myself start to expect great things from this show, of course, it has to make it through the pilot approval process first, but how could it not?
There is not premiere date listed yet for Human, but with the kind of budget and production values it’s got planed, it will likely be spring 2014 before it gets greenlit, and then Fall before we see the pilot on the air. Of course, with Abrams busy schedule, who knows how he has time to do any TV shows anymore.
