Mia sends the washed-up synths to sanctuary at the Railyard, but Max won’t let them in, adding to the powder keg of tension that’s building up among the artificial lifeform community.

With Humans’ third episode there’s a greater sense of the pace of the show, which is constructed around the three ad breaks and the character groupings. The series opener was a big bang, but the second really slowed things down, and now we can get the measure of the show – big surprises notwithstanding.

Part of the show’s structure is its deliberate foreshadowing of the upcoming events – Laura’s flirting with Neil is obviously going to lead to a date, Joe’s run-in with undercover synths is going to become a moral quandary, and Max’s inability to appease all factions inevitably leads to dissent.

The scenes where Mia (Gemma Chan) rents a flat in a housing estate of vehemently anti-synth neighbours are very unsettling – a clear allegory for the human bias against those seen as different. This is the one area where I’m still trying to work out what her end game really is, though it may just be to prove to the humans that she’s non-threatening.

Laura (Katherine Parkinson) continues to feel ineffective as part of the Dryden Commission, her fellow members opting to keep conscious synthetics under curfew, and she learns a hard lesson that Neil (Mark Bonnar) isn’t really on her side. Of course, he has personal reasons for animosity towards the synths, making his character a little more nuanced in its prejudice.

Joe (Tom Goodman-Hill) having to jump into the road to save young synth Sam is a significant plot development, not because he was a hero, but because surrogate mother Karen (Ruth Bradley) can’t intervene if her actions present a risk to her own well-being. She’s clearly troubled at being unable to defend her own child, casting doubts on her ability to be a ‘real’ mother. Joe, against his better judgement, does the right thing, his estrangement from Laura and his family taking its toll.

Verdict: Moral, political and human issues play out in the sadly all-too-recognisable landscape of Humans. Ironically, it’s the synths we’re more inclined to relate to, but by becoming more human themselves they are inheriting the worst of our frailties. 7/10

Nick Joy