Sure, J.J. Abrams is working on Star Wars: Episode VII, but that’s still two years away. In the meantime, anyone looking for their fill of Abrams-style science fiction will only have to wait until Sunday night, when his new TV show, Almost Human, finally premieres on Fox.

Almost Human is set in a future Los Angeles, where human police officers are matched up with robots. Karl Urban stars as an officer who gets matched with a robot that happens to have more human-like emotions than other robots. Urban’s partner is played by Michael Ealy. The show was created by J.H. Wyman and Abrams is an executive producer, since his Bad Robot co-produced the show.

The show was originally supposed to start on Monday, Nov. 4. However, Fox decided to instead launch the show on Sunday, Nov. 17 after NFL coverage. A second new episode will premiere Monday at 8 p.m., its regular timeslot.

“One of the opportunities about this show is it not only has characters that make you smile and laugh, and relationships that feel as unique as they are familiar, but its uniqueness comes from something that isn’t necessarily possible right now,” Abrams told Entertainment Weekly about the show. “Like any story-out-of-time, you want characters and situations where you go, ‘I know what that is. I know what that feels like. I know someone like that’ — even though the person might be a different species.”

Abrams explained that the show is based in a familiar paradigm, but the specifics are different from what we’re used to. “The technology is part of what’s going on, but there’s a level of relatability and understanding,” he said.

Since Abrams has what seems like a ton of projects on his mind right now, he was asked how involved he can possibly be. He told TheWrap that while Bad Robot’s writers and producers may oversee these projects more closely than he does, he will occasionally chime in with suggestions.

“J.J.’s very, very involved in everything. To be a hundred percent honest, even in Fringe, like in the second or third season, when someone would send me effects to look at, he was always on the emails and he would weigh in,” Wyman told TheWrap. “It’s really a miracle how much he does...If he loves something and he really believes in it, he’s always there in a way.”

While the show won’t be seen by audiences for a couple of days, critics have already seen the pilot and many aren’t overly enthusiastic. HitFix referred to it as a “formulaic cop show” that just happens to have robots in it, while USA Today notes that it is only ‘almost’ good.

Audiences will just have to decide for themselves Sunday night.

image: Fox