As I’ve mentioned before, we no longer have a cable/satellite TV setup. We either watch older series on Netflix Streaming or we buy current series off of iTunes. (And the price for internet connection + TV shows roughly works out to the price for a monthly cable bill with HBO, and this way we don’t have TV flooding in our house unchecked.)
So we are always looking for new shows to watch together. if something sounds half interesting, we download a show or two, check it out, and then buy the series.
One that we started watching is Being Human, the UK version.
Being Human story of a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost (and eventually, the werewolf’s girlfriend) who all live together and the problems and/or hilarity this causes. Annie, the ghost, is too damn “nice” for her own good. Mitchell, the vampire, is at war with his own baser, bloodier urges. And George, the werewolf, is a regular guy who finds himself with a completely unwanted and brutal power. (Reportedly the original inspiration for this story was the writer wanted to have a sex addict, an agoraphobe, and a person with anger management issues living together. I’m not sure I believe this. It’s a great story, though.)
The actors were all pretty good without having that too-beautiful-for-you thing that American TV actors always have. We’d seen the guy playing George the werewolf, Russell Tovey, in a couple of other things and already really liked him — he has the likable everyman thing nailed down. And I adore Lenora Crichlow’s hair. In general, the show’s story lines were always interesting…although UK TV dramas can be deeply frustrating in a few ways. Possibly because they have to fill 57 minutes instead of 42. One thing you have to admit for Hollywood, they have cracked the damn formula for how to make satisfying TV and movies. British shows can be wildly uneven in their drama, coming up with interesting situations and characters, only to let them drop, or not really use them, or weaken them at the last moment.
(Or even worse, moments that are completely not earned by what’s come before. The end of the first series of Being Human made me crazy for exactly this reason: the ghost, Annie, has been completely victimized by another character. She has been a complete doormat. And at the end of the season, she whispers something in the bully’s ear that creates utter and complete terror. Um, no. Sorry, that’s not fair. You have to tell us what she said. And I think the writers know there’s nothing she could have said, and so they cheated by having her whisper something.)
Despite going back and forth on how much we liked the show overall, we bought and watched the first three series.
And then came the surprise at the end of the third series. If you’ve seen it, you know what I mean.
Followed by the related surprise at the beginning of the fourth series.
I’m being oblique for a reason (in case you haven’t seen it). Let’s just say that most shows would simply close up shop at this point.
But they didn’t. Instead, they added a few new interesting characters. Including this guy:
His name is Damien Molony, and if there is any justice in the world, you will be hearing his name a LOT in the future.
This is a show about a ghost, a werewolf, and a vampire living together, right? I love SF/F shows but I accept that there’s a basic line of ridiculous in them. I am amazed at how the actors in these shows can deliver most of the lines without cracking up.
In episode two (I think) of the fourth series Molony, as the vampire Hal, said something that made no sense. If you read it in a book, you’d probably snicker about how completely ridiculous it was. But seconds later in our living room the conversation went something like this:
DARIN
Who is this guy?
DIANE
I have no idea. He’s amazing.
DARIN
How did he do that?
DIANE
According to IMDb, this is like this guy’s first job.
(According to this interview, it really is his first job.)
It’s actually a little unfair, when one of the actors in a show is so much better than everything else going on around him, but I swear to God, this one guy made Being Human go from “Well, okay, let’s watch this” to “I must see the next episode NOW.” I think it’s the only time I’ve been annoyed that there are so few episodes in a season of a British show.
And despite how the fourth series ended — let’s just say there was a setup in the overarching plot for the season that a US show would find a loophole in and then resolve very, very differently — I cannot wait for the fifth series.
The fourth series isn’t on Netflix Streaming yet, but the first three are, so you can catch up on them while waiting for the fourth to be posted.