I don’t know why I’m so surprised. But I was holding out hope that Fox would have learned its lesson from “Firefly” and actually let a good SciFi show carry on. But no. Instead, they handled “Almost Human” in almost exactly the same way they handled “Firefly.” It’s like they have a playbook for how to kill a good show:

• Air the episodes out of order, so that any over arching theme is confusing at best and most likely destroyed at worst.
• Make sure that the episodes that introduce the characters most effectively are buried somewhere in the middle of the season, since you’re already airing them out of order. That way any casual viewer will see no reason to give a rats ass about what’s going on.
• Skip weeks with no information on when (or if) the show will be back on the air.
• Then return with a show that clearly should have been aired earlier in the season because, well, because you can.
• Don’t bother with PR. If the fans cared, they would watch.
• And when they do watch, ignore them.
• Make sure that whatever ads or PR you do do for the show focuses solely on violent car chases or robots getting blown up. Because the only demographic for SciFi is 18-year-old male. And those same males only like car chases and blown up robots. Oh and maybe a sexbot or two.

Maybe they’ll add to their playbook: