Warning: contains plot details for Humans and Äkta Människor series one.

Humans: A dot of white light blinks on and shrinks away into a black recess. The shot pulls back through electronic camera shutters to reveal an unnaturally green eye framed by dark lashes. A trolley wheel squeaks along a reflective, sterile white floor, past rows of still upright bodies—male and female, all races, dressed only in underwear. The trolley-pusher disregards the ranks of people behind him as if they’re part of the furniture. He switches off the lights and the rows remain, unmoving in the dark. One, just one, raises her head to look up through a skylight at the full moon.

Äkta Människor: A middle-aged man drives down a quiet country road at night and takes a phone call from his wife. Momentarily distracted, his car hits a pedestrian, a young woman who bounces off the bonnet and rolls onto the ground, headlights in the darkness illuminating her unmoving body. The camera notes an aged, peeling “Real Humans” sticker on his windscreen before the driver gets out to inspect the woman, who is emitting a digital bleeping sound. The driver sees a group of people silhouetted on the horizon and drives away panicked, running over the corpse a second time. Once home, he loads a rifle and prepares for a siege attack. They’re coming.

While the opening moments of Humans cleave to the sci-fi tradition, the first scenes of its Swedish ancestor are classic horror. Äkta Människor or Real Humansestablishes the threat to human life represented by its ‘wild Hubots’ from the word go. When we first meet them, the android gang aren’t presented as fugitives, but as aggressors. Aside from overly made-up faces, there’s initially little to distinguish them from any threatening pack of home invaders. They could equally be a gang of burglars, murderers, vampires, or a Swedish S Club 7 gone rogue.