Fangers, Digby and Casper: True Blood vs. Being Human

(True Blood's Jessica getting frisky...not in a good way.)


I've just finished watching the finale of True Blood series 3. And it was great, a lot of fun, just like the season overall and a marginal improvement on season 2.

But though this season had its fair share of inspired and messed up 'HOLY C**P!' moments (head twisting sex springs to mind) I didn't find myself particularly involved in what was going on. Part of the problem for me has been the werewolves. The furry critters made their début on the show this year. And that's cool. I love werewolves. They are by far my favourite mythical monster. Unfortunately the werewolves in True Blood ended up being a bit crap. They were mostly shallow and dimwitted trailer trash thugs. And as for the vampires... Well, Bill proved himself yet again to be a right arse. Luckily Eric is still pretty cool and I do still love Jessica. Other than that I don't much like the vamps in this show, though I did appreciate seeing more of their supernatural side this year. I loved it when their invitation to a home gets revoked and they then get invisibly dragged in reverse back outside. The series ended with several plot threads and a couple of cliffhangers ready for series 4.

Don't get me wrong, True Blood is still a highly watchable and enjoyable series full of great actors, high production values and messed up creativity. It even manages the odd good scare. Perhaps it's the format of fast paced plotting, loads of characters, gratuitous sex and gore that is starting to wear a tinsy bit thin with me. I kinda need something more for long term viewing. A bit more depth and a bit more weight maybe?

Speaking of vamps and werewolves I've also been re-watching series 1 of the BBC's Being Human. It is easy to forget just how awesome this show is. True Blood is a lot of fun but for my money we Brits here in Bristol (though now Cardiff for series 3...Boo!) have the superior show. It may not have the budget or gloss of True Blood but the writing to my mind is sharper, more focussed, more considered and a lot more meaningful. It is also primarily a character driven show whereas True Blood is mostly plot and incident driven, possibly suffering somewhat from too many characters and disparate story threads. For instance, in True Blood I like Lafayette but I wasn't remotely interested in his story this year nor really in the story of Sam and his family. In contrast, the beauty of Being Human is that the focus of the show is always on the three main characters: Annie the ghost, Mitchell the vampire and George the werewolf, and on their simple desire and struggle to have a quiet ordinary life. Being Human takes the trials and tribulations of real everyday life and gives them a supernatural twist. But it remains always utterly relatable. The point of the show is in its title. It acts as a mirror and an ode to what being human on a day to day level means. It's pretty much what Joss did with Buffy and why that show still works and resonates so well. Oh yeah, it also doesn't hurt that Being Human's main bad guy Herrick is simply one of THE best vampire villains ever. Jason Watkins rules! Plus the werewolves in Being Human are waaay better than the ones in True Blood.

In the end True Blood and Being Human are very different shows doing different things with the supernatural. And I appreciate them both. Though, for me, Being Human is the superior entity as it manages to do so much more with a lot less. Plus its local to me so I'm bias.

Being Human, Being Brilliant!

Being Human: Series 2

The awesome supernatural house-share drama and my favourite TV show of last year returned for series 2 last night. A vampire called Mitchell, a ghost called Annie and a werewolf called George all live together in a shared rented house in Bristol and together gain mutual support in circumventing their supernatural natures so as to live like normal regular everyday people, to just be…well…human.

After the battle against the vampire revolution and the defeat of vampire leader Herrick at the end of the last series, only a short time has now passed. About a month to be precise. And there is fallout to deal with including the exact lycanthropic status of werewolf George’s girlfriend Nina and the power vacuum amongst the remaining vampires after Herrick’s death. Plus there is a group of humans doing nasty secret experiments on supernaturals, one of which results in the particularly gruesome death of a werewolf in a hyperbolic chamber. And then there's the arrival of two new vampires in town with their own weird agendas. They are a married couple of which the husband seems to want to taunt and torture Mitchell and George for Herrick’s death while his wife apparently just wants to make dirty vampire/werewolf sex with George while also looking to kill off any living remnants from her human past. Yep, the stage seems set for a very interesting and hopefully bizarre new series of Being Human.

This first episode was great. It did a very good job reintroducing the characters and setting up ideas and threats for the new series. The main focus of the story was about Nina, George’s spiky nurse girlfriend who he accidentally scratched in the last episode of series one. It was about her fear that she is now a werewolf too and how she'd deal if she is one, and how George would deal with being the one to have cursed her. The episode was also about the three main characters looking for new meaning and purpose in their lives. Annie the ghost has become more confident and less afraid. As such she’s now visible to everyone and almost 100% corporeal when she wants to be. So much so that she goes and gets herself a job as a barmaid in a local pub. It’s a crazy idea - a ghost getting a job. But it is very funny and Lenora Crichlow as Annie is so sweet and charming that you just go with it. Her excitement over finding a new lease of life in death is infectious. Meanwhile Mitchell the vampire makes a connection with a new female member of staff at the hospital where he works in a cute scene involving pet goldfish. And then there is George the werewolf. Previously, George was very ordered and reticent about life in general as well as hateful of the monster he'd been turned in to. But now he seems to have embraced his werewolf nature despite still protesting how much he hates it. Those protestations sounded a little hollow with his temperament appearing rather arrogant, cold and aggressive. He even went and got jiggy with the naughty vampire lady…something he’d never have done before. But then I guess it was the night before the full moon.

Writer/creator Toby Whithouse provided another great character based/led script that was as rich in human themes as it was in fantasy plot and horrific incident. The characters were all great and the dialogue funny, sharp and meaningful. Toby can write great lines just as well as any top US writer. I especially loved his little nod to Buffy when Annie, trying to console Nina over her fears of being a werewolf, said: “There was a werewolf in Buffy called Nina.” Nina replied that she never watched it. Annie then said: “Yeah, well, I stopped watching it when I started living it.” Great! Although being a Buffy geek I have to point out that Nina the werewolf was actually in season five of Angel and not in Buffy at all. But appreciated all the same Toby :D

And talking of werewolves…the beasties in series 2 look even better than they did last year with the transformations still up to the same high standards. Very creepy in An American Werewolf in London style. Wicked!

All in all a great start to (hopefully) a great second series. Bring on episode 2 already.

Two strangers arrive…