Okay, this is now on my watch list. And I’m only a week behind, which is nearly unheard of.
Being Human is from the UK (BBC Three), and is airing on BBC America. It’s basically a gothic dramedy about a trio of twenty-somethings sharing a flat — the trio consisting of a ghost, a werewolf, and a vampire.
While this could make a perfectly awful sitcom, Being Human is not out for laughs. There’s darkness, and terror, and blood, and regret, and bad decisions, and bad things happening to good people. On the other hand, there is laughter, poignancy, witty lines, amusing conversations, a bit of soap opera, some conspiracy theory … just a whole bundle of stuff mixed up nicely. It’s much darker than Buffy, let’s say, but it’s not unrelenting emo blight and despair, either. An American Werewolf in London is closer to the tone, though BH is not quite as jokey.
The thrust of the show, as presented, is how these three, individually and as a group, try to deal with their personal monstrosity (mostly in different methods of denial, so far) as they try to pass as human. Are they, in fact, human? Or just trying to be?
The FX are (at least in the first episode) fairly rudimentary — some AWiL-class shapeshifting, some eye-darkening CG and fangs for vamps, but nothing fancy. Nor, so far, has it been needed.
The first series in the UK was well-received, and a second is on the way. Of course, this being the UK, the first series is only six episodes long, but be aware that there are spoilers all over the links below for Americans who haven’t seen it.
For a series premiere, the show did a fabulous in media res — filling us in on the characters even as it hinted at history recent and distant. Part of that tone comes from there being a pilot for the show that was fully recast from (and so hasn’t been seen here), but which the lead writer still considers canon. There were also three short prequel, one for each of the protagonists, shot before the series (available at the BBC sites below).
Overall, I enjoyed it a lot. I plan to watch the rest.
Yup, good stuff! The BBC is doing great work in SF again. Between the latest Dr. Who’s, Torchwood: Children of Earth and now this, consider me sold!
I watched episode one over the last two days (DVR + busy schedule = broken up shows), but I really loved the tone. I had no idea about the individual character intros, I’ll have to watch those!
As to tone, I think this really feels like the less apocolyptic episodes of Torchwood, or the darker episodes of Dr. Who. Creepy nastiness interspaced with normal life and witty banter.
Yeah, that’s a good call, esp. the Torchwood tone (and esp. the “Wow, these guys are kind of self-destructive and unhappy” eps of same, early on).
Michelle saw an episode at the Con and thought it very good. However I can’t get BBC America without getting a another package of cable stations, and I don;t need to give any more $ to the cable company. Maybe on DVD.