The BBC adult drama Being Human has always had a strong premise – a werewolf, vampire, and ghost – living together and trying to maintain some semblance of a normal existence. A world filled with such creatures, though, is far from normal and their attempts have consequences. The series’ first season was quite strong, enough so that SyFy bought the premise and produced their own seriously watered-down version of the show (which has also done well enough for a second season).
The show felt a bit lost during its second season, but it built up its audience so the series got an eight-episode third season order. Today, the DVD release allows audiences in America to catch up with Mitchell (Aidan Turner), George (Russell Tovey) and Annie (Lenora Crichlow) and you will be in very good company indeed.
As the second season ended, Mitchell went on a vampiric bender, massacring a subway full of people. The aftermath of that event forms the metastory for the season as police continue to determine who committed the crime, while the Old Ones send agents to express their displeasure to Mitchell, who is also being haunted.
We open with “Lia”, a victim (Lacey Turner) aboard the subway, who takes Mitchell on a journey through the hereafter, seeking Annie, who wound up there after an exorcism at the end of season two. He revisits his past thanks to Lia, who perkily keeps him company before leaving him with the prophecy that a “wolf-shaped” bullet would kill him. As he copes with knowledge, the ages-old enmity between werewolves and vampires is another theme that plays out in most of the episodes.
Annie has returned to the corporeal world, still a ghost but content with her lot. Complicating life at home, though, is that George and his lover Nina (Sinead Keenan), while in wolf form, have conceived a baby which both thrills and freaks them out. They seek others of their kind for information on what this gestation might do to the infant or Nina and come across McNair (Robson Green) and his son Tom (Michael Socha), who have issues of their own to sort through.
We watch Annie and Mitchell also become a romantic couple, brining happiness to Annie, however, briefly. She also recognizes what could have been when a corpse has been scientifically resurrected with disastrous results when the dead woman refuses to acknowledge her condition.
Despite the storylines for the others, this is really Mitchell’s season, especially as his former mentor and one-time enemy Herrick (Jason Watkins) turns up. At first, Herrick has lost the memories of his past but of course that gets undone later on and hysteria follows. Still, Mitchell comes to the realization that he is not your typical vampire and feels a need to atone for his crimes while containing the raging, murdering, blood-lusting beast within. As a result, he asks George to kill him as the final episode winds down and we see the grief-stricken friend do this act of kindness. As it turns out, Turner’s movie career is taking off with The Hobbit so he won’t return when the series comes back for a fourth season in 2012. As a result, we can presume Mitchell really has entered the afterlife.
The strength of the show is in the writing and performances with each hour-long story taking its time to let the characters interact with one another and actually process what is going on to them or around them. Their actions have consequences and how they impact on one another and their corner of the world, which is now a former Hawaiian-themed B&B in Wales. This is a far stronger season than the second one was and makes me eager to see what is to come next.
The series was shot for high-definition and the transfer to Blu-ray is sharp with good sound. Disappointing though is that the rich extras that marked seasons one and two have been reduced to a handful of lesser offerings this time around. There are a handful of deleted scenes which are so-so and you don’t miss a thing. You get canned cast interviews that feel perfunctory and unrevealing. The best of the sad lot is the tour of the new home base, conducted by Keenan.
