This science fiction drama is based on a currently running successful television show in Sweden called Real Humans. This series gives us a possible future where robots, called Synthetics, are built to look like us and perform all sorts of labor both domestic and manual. Moral and ethical issues seem to be centered on the question of why do we need Synthetics, and can artificial intelligence evolve to self- preservation and self- aware without outside influence from the human race.
The show takes place in London where we follow The Hawkins family and their new purchase of a domestic Synth they named Anita. 
They are not a perfect family, but Joe, the husband, is trying something different to keep his marriage and the household together. Sophie, the youngest daughter is overjoyed to have a Synth. The lack of empathy towards the Synths is pretty evident when Sophie tells her father, Joe, that if the Synth is not pretty enough can they exchange it. Also the salesperson selling the Synth adds a 30 day money back guarantee upon buying it. These examples give us a picture as to the attitude and behavior towards the Synths. Laura, the wife, is not happy with Joe making this decision without her, but he defends it by saying Anita will give them more time for each other and help around the house. She feels threatened Anita whenever she is around Sophie, thinking that she is being replaced by a robot.
Another storyline follows an aging retiree, Dr. George Millican, that doesn’t want to replace his old D-series, Odi, with an upgrade that a case worker suggested when she came to visit him, checking on his old Synth. George knows that Odi is obsolete, but Odi has been with him for many years and holds memories of him and his wife before she passed away. Things start to get complicated when Odi malfunctions in a grocery store and accidentally strikes a store worker. By law, when a Synth harms a human, it must be recycled. George pleads with the police to not do that. The detective Peter Drummnd, investigating this case gives George a break and tells him to go home and terminate the Synth himself. George follows the detective’s orders and at first he tries to fix Odi, but knows that he is beyond repair. Just before he is about to terminate Odi, he remembers certain things in George’s past. He changes his mind and decides to keep Odi functioning.
The story of Anita begins several weeks before she is sold to the Hawkins. Anita is not your normal Synth. She is a part of a small group of Synths that can think and feel. Her back story reveals that her name is Mia and that she is part of a group led by Leo, a sympathetic human. His hope is to find a place where the conscious Synths can live out in peace and not be subject to forced labor. She is accompanied by three other Synths: Fred, Niska, and Max. Unfortunately, their group gets ambushed and Fred, Niska, and Mia (Anita) are taken away, leaving Leo and Max behind. Leo determine to find his missing Synths, especially Mia (Anita). 
Leo discovers that Niska is being used as a Synth sex bot in a brothel, and Fred is being used for manual labor at a fruit picking farm. But his plans to free them have failed. Fred is exposed and taken to a laboratory and Leo believes that Niska is safer in the brothel, because she hasn’t been discovered. He asks her if she turned off her pain program, she says, “I am meant to feel”. Knowing that she has to pretend to be a typical Snyth sex bot which has no emotion or feeling, she will undoubtly feel everything done to her. She has to trust Leo to come back and set her free. Leo has no idea where Mia (Anita) is, but he will not stop until he finds her. At the Hawkins residence, Anita keeps seeing memories of water, a submerged car with people inside it, but she has no reaction to it. However something is stirring inside her. She does something very strange, she picks up Sophie while she is asleep, and carries her out of the house and down the street and kisses her on the cheek.
Hobbs, the mysterious person who help capture Fred at the fruit picking farm, is at the laboratory where Fred is being held. He explains to a couple of corporate executives that Fred is something different. He fears that Fred is the first of many that can think and feel. He believes that Synths like Fred are a threat to our way of life. He is afraid that the Synths will develop a mind of their own and refuse to be obedient anymore.
This show is a mixing pot of A.I., Star Trek: TNG and Voyager, and I Robot, where robots and androids work as a labor force and addresses the issue of what it is to be human. Sometimes we work hard to the point where we perform like machines. We push ourselves to exhaustion that it begs the question…. is there a better way? This show gives us a glimpse into that possible answer and the consequences of our actions.
