Being Human… and too sick to pray

I love this new series called “Being Human” on BBC 3, it’s refreshing, it’s fantastic. I can’t recall an adult drama about the supernatural that is as funny as this but manages to explore the darker aspects of human nature. Most well made supernaturally themed stuff these days is for kids with only a hint at adult themes.  Being Human fills a much needed void.

Mitchell from Being Human

It’s centred on the lives of three misfits.  No, not your average banal misfit e.g. fat girl with zits or skinny emo gay boy.  It’s about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost trying to live normal lives in England.

The Vampire is called Mitchell. He is extremley pleasurable eye-candy and has an irish accent (hellooo, this is like my heaven!).  Originally in the pilot he was played by some other loser actor that tried too hard to be cool. This Mitchell gets it right. The character of Mitchell runs deep. He’s basically a lot like the Cullens from the books Twilight, trying to be vegetarian. Abstaining from sucking ze blood of humans. He accidentally killed a lover during sex and thus she turns into a psycho bitch vampire.  But I dont want to give too much away…

George the Werewolf from Being Human

The werewolf is a fantastic,  nerdy character. A man who would have been a high-flyer in the geek world of MI5 if it hadnt of been for his hmm.. affliction. George is the moral heart of the group. A stuttering typical run of the mill bloke with a particularly hairy once a month secret. He is very sarcastic and he’ll be the one with the lines that make you laugh out loud.

Mitchell and Annie from Being Human

The ghost, is perhaps my favourite character. Sweet Annie, she had a lovely life (or so she thought) until she fell down the stairs and died. She was madly in love with her fiance who is now the landlord of the house she haunts (where she and her fiance had lived before her untimely death). She was used to no one seeing her and was having a high time of scaring off new tenants until Mitchell the vamp and George the werewolf moved in and could see her… She was ecstatic. Flatmates!  Only slightly more alive than she.  Annie soon realises that she is only really beginning to discover what her life is all about, now that’s she’s dead…

Each episode so far has been great. A real british humour is central to it’s success but it’s not all light.  The series deals with adult issues with a supernatural twist (yes you get to see timid George go at it  like a crazed wolf with his new girlfriend…). However, these three come across as very human in their attempts to  desperately  “be human” and that is what is so endearing about the whole thing.  Oh and Mitchell, Mitchell is very endearing indeed.

Check out the first few episode on BBC  iplayer for free, you wont be disappointed. It also has a wonderful soundtrack, in particular tonight’s episode with “too sick to pray” by A3 being a perfect accompliment for Mitchell’s “illness”.