Almost Human Preview: Watch 8 Minutes Of Fox's Futuristic Cop Drama

Originally, Fox had Almost Human lined up to premiere next week, but the premiere date has been pushed back a couple of weeks, which makes the above video feel like a consolation prize — but a good one. Fox has released eight minutes of the futuristic drama, introducing us to Karl Urban’s John Kennex, a cop who survived one of the city’s most catastrophic attacks and is returning to duty where he’ll be partnered with a robot.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen the pilot, but it doesn’t look like the clip above starts at the very beginning, as we don’t see how Kennex sustained his injuries, nor do we get a peek at his synthetic leg. Though it is implied that he lost his leg during the mentioned attack. The clip picks up just as Kennex is returning to duty. He’s assigned with a battle-ready MX-43, but as we soon see, they’re not a good match. Kennex is taking black-market-acquired pills — presumably for his injuries — and his new robot’s already making a list of things to report about him. So Kennex kicks the robot out of the car, claims it’s an accident and is assigned a new robot. The DRN or Dorian (Michael Ealy). This model of robot is said to be defective due to its emotional responses. In other words, Dorian might be too human for his own good. But maybe that’s just what Kennex needs right now.

Amidst all of this, we get introduced to Lily Taylor’s Sandra Maldonado, the Captain at the department and ally to Kennex. Minka Kelly plays human intelligence analyst Detective Valerie Stahl. She seems far too pretty not to turn into a love interest, but we’ll see what happens there. And then there’s MacKenzie Crook of the original The Office (and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies), who plays technician Rudy Lom. He’ll presumably be the guy who knows everything about Dorian and these robots. I can also picture him being the tech geek at the computer tasked to scramble for a solution if ever something goes wrong with Dorian in the field.

Finally, it’s worth noting the futuristic backdrop for this series. The year is 2048, and it shows in the cars and the flashy technology we see the police using. That should add a bit of extra shine to the series, and may give the writers some more space to get creative with the kinds of crimes that will be solved. But my biggest interest is the relationship between Kennex and Dorian. The video barely gives us more than an introduction to Dorian before it cuts out. We know that the MX models are by the book, but something tells me Dorian will be a bit more flexible with how he handles Kennex, which would be a good thing for his sake, unless he wants to take a tumble out of a moving car and end up in pieces on the highway.

Almost Human premieres Sunday, November 17 and Monday, November 18 at 8/7c on Fox. For more information about the series, check out Fox’s Almost Human website.