Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix, Jessica Jones), Sam Palladio (Nashville), Marshall Allman (True Blood), Sonya Cassidy (The Paradise) and Letitia Wright (Cucumber/ Banana) join the cast.

Gemma Chan, Katherine Parkinson, Tom Goodman-Hill, Emily Berrington, Will Tudor, Colin Morgan, Ivanno Jeremiah, Neil Maskell and Ruth Bradley reprise their roles in the hotly anticipated second series of the BAFTA nominated drama.

Channel 4 and AMC announced today that filming is underway on the second series of the Kudos produced hit drama, Humans. Written by Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley, the original cast are joined by a host of new faces for a second series that will grow, deepen and expand the world of Humans. The eight-episode second season is slated to premiere in the UK in late 2016 and 2017 in the U.S.

Several months on from the events of series one, Niska (Berrington) is still at large and in possession of the consciousness code. Her synth family, Mia (Chan), Leo (Morgan) and Max (Jeremiah), unaware of her location, are each trying to find their place in the world while Joe (Goodman-Hill) and Laura (Parkinson) attempt to mend their marriage.

As unconfirmed reports of synths behaving inexplicably surface, the ripple effects of one simple yet seismic decision sees the past return dramatically and surprisingly to the door of the Hawkins house. Joe, Laura and the entire family are faced with a difficult choice that will put the family under an intense spotlight.

In the US, Milo Khoury (Marshall Allman), a young Silicon Valley billionaire, founder and CEO of a leading technology company is pioneering new research. But he needs help and attempts to recruit Dr Athena Morrow (Carrie-Anne Moss) – the country’s pre-eminent Artificial Intelligence expert. Suspicious of his motives and focussed on her own work Morrow is single-minded in her drive to create a new kind of machine consciousness.

As an emerging form of intelligent life – the synths – and an established one – humanity – fight for their places in the world, a thrilling multi-stranded narrative evolves which continues to ask: who has the right to determine what it means to be alive?

Humans is written by Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley (Spooks: The Greater Good), the series is produced by Kudos in association with Matador Films. Executive producers are Derek Wax (The Hour, Capital) and Chris Fry (The Smoke, Spooks) for Kudos, Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley, and Henrik Widman and Lars Lundström for Matador Films. The new series is produced by Paul Gilbert, and directed by Lewis Arnold (Humans, Banana). Humans was commissioned for Channel 4 by Beth Willis and Simon Maxwell; and Joel Stillerman and Kristin Jones for AMC.