Be Excellent To Each Other

Is anyone else watching this?

The premise is quite ridiculous (three people are flatmates - one is a vampire, one is a werewolf, one is a ghost), but it's actually really good.

Each episode is 1hr long (45 minutes might have been snappier, but it's by no means far too long) and it is mostly played quite seriously. The parts where you find out how each became what they are work really well, and the overarching story is of them all trying to be more human. The vamp/wolf are trying to deny their 'dark' sides, and the ghost is trying to just fit in more.

The special effects are good (they seem more 'realistic' than Dr Who at least), but it's really the writing that clinches it, and the way that the comic and tragic are placed right next to each other makes you literally laugh one minute and then be aghast the next.

Add in some running stories about what the other vampires are planning, more wolves, and the ghost's story... and it's pretty damn good.

It's on Catch-up TV on Virgin TV at the moment, and there have been three episodes.

Oh, and they use music brilliantly in it.

Probably the best new UK TV show I've seen in years. Oh, and full of recognisible faces (of the three main characters, one was Sugar in 'Sugar Rush' and the other was the 'midshipman' or whatever in the Xmas Dr Who episode that had Kylie in it. And pretty much everyone has been in 'Holby' at least once).

Definitely worth a watch.

THANK YOU!

Started watching it on iplayer but got distracted. It seemed like it had a lot of promise though.

It does. Maria suggested watching it with her and I was prepared to hate it as it sounded terrible, but it's put together really well. By no means perfect, but very good.

Drat. I meant to watch this but missed it.

Good job the iPlayer is now optimised for Wii!

It's MUCH better than Demons, yes?

Much much better. Better than (although different to) early Buffy and Angel, too. It's well-written, well-acted, and has some decent, original ideas. The only niggle for me is that they didn't redo the pilot with the new cast and continuity (although I guess they could always refilm it as a 'special' if the show takes).

It also actually bothers to deal with consequences, too, which is unusual these days, and I shall be extremely angry if it's not recommissioned (although the BBC's already fucking about with the timeslot—for sodding Italian football, no less—and so, presumably, the higher-ups are trying to kill it already).

Thanks for pointing this out. My much better half and I watched the first three episodes last night and both really enjoyed it. It's basically exactly what Torchwood has been trying and failing to be - contemporary fantasy-horror stories for grown-ups. Hurrah!

My only real reservation is George. The nerdy social inadequate thing is just writ a bit too large and every so often the guy playing him will deliver a line in a way that doesn't quite ring true. He goes to the shrill-and-squeaky well a touch to often, I think. It's particularly noticable because the performances of the other two leads are so strong.

I'm also extremely miffed they nicked the idea of a ghost from the eighties, which I've been planning to use in my Werewolf TTRPG for months. That aside, it's excellent.

Glad you like it! I agree with George; at times he's excellent but sometimes he does squeak a bit too much.

The vampire guy is excellent though, as is the mischievous female vamp.

I didn't care for the pilot but someone else suggested the full series of it and after watching the first episode I think it is much better. I think the new ghost is much cuter.

Funny, really, that many people—myself included—were annoyed at the BBC release that stated most of the original cast had been replaced, and yet the sole surviving member is the weakest link in the show. Still, even his performances aren't bad. (Compare to, say, Torchwood, where even the best performances were generally mediocre.)

I watched the first episode and I think it's pretty good.
Good acting and enjoyable setup, and there was very little in there that actively annoyed me - compare to Dr Who or Torchwood (well, I can't watch Torchwood at all), and it's a breath of fresh air.

I think George is OK, if I have a reservation about the cast at all it's the ghost - she just reminds me of Two Pints Of Lager for some reason.

If they can make the stories interesting it should be approaching Buffy/Angel levels of goodness.

She looks a little like a prettier version of one of the cast, yes. But less annoying. I too was unsure of her at the start, as her cheerful nature constrasts a lot with the others, but it all fits together soon enough.

I think at this stage, it's already better than Buffy was for all of its first season.

Oh now steady on, let's not say things we'll regret later.

I rewatched the entire Buffy and Angel runs not that long ago. Early Buffy wasn't exactly wonderful. It was good, but not great and certainly not fully formed. I'd have trouble suggesting Being Human beats Buffy series 2, but for me it certainly beats the early episodes in almost every way.

I saw the first episode of this last night and concluded it was quite good and worth my watching the second.

Buffy did take a while to get going. If seeing it for the first time you could probably be forgiven for thinking it's your typical lightweight teen drama, and not bother watching any more. Being Human by contrast drops you right in at the deep end with plenty of anguish, sex, violence and swearing, as well as a good fast paced story so I can see where you're coming from.

But they do seem to be burning through their plot at quite a rate, helped by the long episodes. I hope they can maintain that. We've already got the "big evil vampire plot scenario" building fast and I've only seen episode 2 so far! It'll be interesting to see what they do with it.

Another thing, Buffy had lots of directions to take for one-off stories or plot arcs - your Monster of the week or your Weird Happening / magical influence type device. So far Being Human has neither - it's people based, your basic good vs evil with conflicted characters stuck in the middle. That's fine, but there's only so much you can do with it before it turns into a soap, I think.

Basically, add a lesbian witch and we're all good.

I like just being dropped into a world, without the hand-holding. To some extent, Firefly did that, and it got going far more quickly. I was totally into that by the second episode. Buffy took a lot longer to really snare me (and Angel doesn't count, given that it's a spin-off with two established characters).

But, yeah, they are rifling through plot, but I suspect that's down to a number of things, not least the limitations of British series and the need to build up enough interest to be recommissioned. At least this isn't to the detriment of the series, though. The vampire-rising thing actually works, since it's being drip-fed as much as possible. Compare that to Demons, which just plonked abrupt plot shifts in every episode and expected you to give a damn. (Demons, despite being rubbish, actually had all the ingredients to be another Buffy, but the pacing was terrible.)


I think the general idea with Being Human is that it's more of a 'what if?' with real consequences being shown. That's something Buffy very rarely dealt with, and even when it did it was sometimes in an utterly stupid and ham-fisted manner (the most irksome being Buffy's lack of funds during the later run—she would have lost her house with the tiny amount of cash she was making).

The real limiting factor in Being Human could turn out to be time-keeping, though. If they always jump one month to the next full moon, it could restrict the series. Then again, it's also the kind of thing that can be utilised by decent writers, and on the evidence so far, Being Human's not without those.

That wasn't really my experience. Buffy impressed me from the word go - possibly because I had absolutely no expectations of it - and going back to the first series recently I was suprised how many really strong stories there were - off the top of my head, The Pack was a standout, the subverting of the Evil Toy trope in The Puppet Show was excellently done and Out Of Mind Out Of Sight was a great idea well-handled. It's a bit rough around the edges especially in terms of the fight scenes, it's not as good as it would later get and it's nowhere near as good as Firefly but it still stands up pretty well.

It's a 6 episode series, so they have to get a move on!

Hah, I didn't realise that.

Hmm, well, I prefer the US format at least.

I really don't like the UK preference for 6-part series. I understand that it's a lot easier to secure funding, but I do think it makes for programmes that have difficulty giving proper screen time to second-string characters, and makes the whole thing a little more rushed.

True, but at least this is 6 hour long episodes, as opposed to half hour ones.

Also, is this not just written by the one woman? Single writer shows often have fewer episodes.

Given funding issues, you simply wouldn't get a 22-episode US-style Being Human. It's too much of a risk, and with US funding, there'd have been too many compromises (and one thing BH doesn't seem to really have any of is compromises).

Personally, I quite like the extended UK 'season'—13 episodes or thereabouts. US series sometimes feel padded out, but British ones are too tight, but when it works, everything's packed in. It's kind of like comparing 2000 AD (with its six pages per episode) with US comics—2000 AD gets things done more rapidly and you get great bang-per-buck, but this comes at the expense of things like slow builds.

Still, at least BH has full hours, rather than being hacked up for US consumption (40ish minutes per episode).

Wikipedia says 3 different writers out of the 4 episodes so far. A Rachel Anthony is credited for the 3rd one.

Generally I think I prefer a writing team or lead writer compared with having interchangeable ones each week. Dr Who suffers noticeably from that.

Anyway, sounds like I'm complaining - I'm not, I'm really liking it so far

I think I may write an email to the BBC praising this show, as I've seen some utter, utter dross on BBC3, but this deserves a second series.

How many episodes was Life on Mars? The Shield worked really well at having 12/13 45 min episodes a season.

Two series of eight 60-minute episodes.

Yeah, that's about right, I reckon. For a drama, anyway. British comedies seem to be suited better to 6*30 mins.

I think 12 episodes is the optimum as I found that was my switch off point with 24.

Just watched Episode 4 tonight.

It's REALLY good.

Just watched 3, about to watch 4

4 was REALLY good, indeed. Although I'm disappointed that they fell into the never-less-than-irritating "any strong, intelligent, independant woman is obviously damaged by her past" cliché.

Come on, Being Human. You're better than that.

HOLY FUCK!

EPISODE FIVE!!!!!!

BBC Three needs a seriously fucking good kicking if this isn't recommissioned within, ooh, the next week. All five episodes of this series have been great, and, amazingly, it's gotten better as it's gone on. This kicks the living shit out of Torchwood, Doctor Who and even Life on Mars. (And, yes, Buffy fans, I'm now utterly convinced that this series betters early and late Buffy, if not that great period from around seasons 2 to half-way through 4.)

Naturally, I expect the next BBC press release on the subject to use words along the lines of: "We have no plans at present to bring back Being Human for a second series," without any sense of irony right next to some kind of recommissioning statement about Strictly Come Dancing or Graham Norton.

I, however, wait to be surprised. Maybe, for once, the BBC will actually see sense. It looks like 2 Entertain's on the ball, though.

Is there some way that I can express my pleasure at this series to the BBC?

All I can find on their website is a link to the Points of View message board. Admittedly, this board had a several hundred post long thread for Being Human that was pretty much universal praise, but I want to write to someone directly, dammit!

Man, I've missed them all so far. Gonna catch up with them on iPlayer this weekend I think.

I'm really surprised by your comments that it's not turned to dogshit.

They don't make it easy, but after clicking through a maze, I ended up here, which provides a link to a webform.

I really should get around to watching this.

That's such good news I even registered on the BBC Blogs to say how happy I am.

Most watched show on all of iPlayer. Result!

Yeah, that's terrific news. The system works!

Half way through 3 episode. Wonderful stuff.

Gives me hope now that Battlestar is ending.

I watched the first 2 episodes over the weekend I really liked it. Bravo for not being shit! And it gets better you say? Sweet.

Demons - Shame on you!

Yeah, all the way to the fifth one. I wasn't quite as keen on six, since it looked a bit like a 'hedging their bets' episode, trying to wrap things up but also leave a couple of strands open for a follow-up. Very interesting final scene, however!


It's been canned.

Yeah, the final episode couldn't live up to the fifth one, which was super mega awesome, but there's definitely some fun stuff going on.

Next series will be 8 episodes too. Hurrah!

There's some short 5 minute promo pieces for each of the characters on youtube. Worth watching. Can't be arsed to find and post a link though.

Did anyone get too watch the episodes before the bbc 3 version of being human? I remember the person who plays George speaking about them and how their buget had greatly increased since then.

We've just watched the first three episodes today. Very, very impressed.

According to the wikipedia page there was a pilot episode from last year. I'll try to track it down.