Saturday 31 January 2009

Being Human

There have been a few supernatural dramas launched in the past couple of months. Apparitions was a bit disappointing as a kind of Exorcist meets Torchwood kind of thing. It's uncritical and humourless take on catholic mythology didn't deliver the goods with the creativity of Dogma, although it did address the issue of evil with some intelligence and insight. ITV's Buffy clone Demons was, I'm afraid to say, unwatchable, so I can't really comment beyond episode two. It was a good try, but Van Helsing did the Van Helsing thing with a bit more style...

Blessings on the BBC however for having another go with Being Human. On first glance it sounds like a sitcom - a ghost, a vampire and a werewolf all share a flat - roll on the usual bad comedy script writers and you've got another star vehicle for Nicolas Lyndhurst... but no, Being Human is inteligent, dark, emotive and very human.

The opening episode included a nice piece on the nature of loss as newly ghosted Annie texts her now-ex-boyfriend and arranges for him to come round and fix the tap. The werefolf has some difficulties with his "time of the month" and the vampire faces the difficult choice between allowing someone to die or innitiating them into the curse. The chief vampire is a friendly policeman who spends his tiome covering things up. It's a bit silly by the nature of these things but it does work. I find myself looking forward to episode two... or is it already on iPlayer?

1 comment:

Bishop Alan Wilson said...

Thanks for the tip-off, Tim. Sounds a bit like like "Ghost!" As the deliverance ministry bishop in the diocese, I decided at an early stage that Apparitions was so schlocky, it was probably not anything to worry about. The Martin Short character was reasonably sympa, along with his various genre standby appurtenances (hotline to Vatican / nubile nun sidekick)...