Karl Urban plays a cop in a cyberpunk city who hates androids and he’s assigned an android partner to work with. Over the course of the series, his character gradually learns to accept and respect his android partner. Except you’d never know that watching the show as it aired.
Fox aired the episodes out of order so Karl Urban’s character constantly jumps between respecting the android and being a jerk to the android from episode to episode. With no continuity, the show had terrible ratings and was cancelled after one season. I hate that all streaming services and even the DVD kept the incorrect airing order. None of them use the production order, which is how it was intended to be watched:
| Episode | Airing order | Production order |
|---|---|---|
| Pilot | 01 | 1 |
| Skin | 02 | 5 |
| Are You Receiving? | 03 | 6 |
| The Bends | 04 | 7 |
| Blood Brothers | 05 | 8 |
| Arrhythmia | 06 | 3 |
| Simon Says | 07 | 10 |
| You Are Here | 08 | 2 |
| Unbound | 09 | 9 |
| Perception | 10 | 4 |
| Disrupt | 11 | 11 |
| Beholder | 12 | 12 |
| Straw Man | 13 | 13 |
It’s a shame too, because throughout the season there are references to “The Wall”. They keep mentioning how no one crosses The Wall. And yet in the very last scene of the last episode… someone crosses The Wall. I would’ve liked to see where they took that storyline.
This is another perfect example of how Fox destroyed a good series.
Huh. I was watching that one when it aired, and I didn’t even notice, due to the mostly episodic nature of it. Not surprised, given Fox’s history (Browncoats will never forgive and never forget), but somehow it snuck by me.
Way more upset it didn’t get renewed. I’m a bit of an Urban fanboy and was really enjoying the show.
…guess I’ll go watch Doom again.
The most jarring for me is the 8th episode, which was supposed to be the 2nd episode. I’m 7 episodes in at that point and suddenly Karl Urban is being a dick and acting like he just met his partner?? Was weird.
And here you are, posting the list in airing order instead of the proper order :P
Episode Airing order Production order Pilot 01 1 You Are Here 08 2 Arrhythmia 06 3 Perception 10 4 Skin 02 5 Are You Receiving? 03 6 The Bends 04 7 Blood Brothers 05 8 Unbound 09 9 Simon Says 07 10 Disrupt 11 11 Beholder 12 12 Straw Man 13 13 Ok, yeah, that’s fair.
In my defense, I just copied the table from here https://almost-human.fandom.com/wiki/Season_1#Episode_List
I don’t even get why they would do that? Who makes the decision to air episodes out of order and what’s the logic behind it?
I think the idea (stupid as it was) was to front-load all the “action heavy” episodes to air first to try and capture the audience. Then all the “boring” episodes could air once the audience was hooked. Except that doesn’t work at all with a show that has a coherent plot. The execs must’ve thought it was just a police-procedural with random cases and never bothered to actually watch the show to see if that was true.
Saving, I’m going to watch this in production order, thanks
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