'being human' (BBC + vampire/ghost/werewolf): anticipate?

Back tomorrow.

are you just starting the 2nd season there? wonder when it'll get to the u.s.

Yeah, it's series 2. Nice to know this has American fans.

Ohhh that's good news. I'll get Mr Veg to torrent it for me. Screw BBC America and their ridiculous delayed broadcasts.

I read somewhere that SyFy is going to remake this show with an American cast? BOLLOCKS.

Could've done with more laughs.

Yeah, bit too heavy on the arghhhhhnst this time I thought. It was starting to feel like some of the weaker Buffy episodes(which they also referenced very self-consciously). Also I don't think Russell Tovey is a good enough actor to carry those big emotional scenes. I like sinister bible-quoting guy though, echoes of Ultraviolet(which featured a church-funded organisation of vampire hunters). I always like seeing Paul Rhys in things, even though he was hilariously bad in Bonekickers. But then everyone was bad in Bonekickers.

Best bits were Annie in the pub because a) she's a decent comic actress and b) she is fit.

Thought it was a pretty good opener, but yeah the emo was a little heavy and looks set to continue. chap, I concur on both yr points.

In my t0rr3nt queue right now. Looking forward to this...

I feel like this tried to cover too much ground too soon rather than easing back in to things a little, consequently some of it a little jarring

I can never decide whether Tovey is a really good actor playing a really odd, awkward character, or a really odd, awkward actor.

the bit I saw of these was really poor.

watch more bits.

The scenes with George and Nina were pretty horrible, I was glad they made it up towards the end and we're not likely to be faced with a series worth of intense "you gave me werewolf AIDS" recriminations.

Needed more laughs though, the pub storyline should be fun. The landlord's son is a good character in the making.

Much, much better this week, mainly because George wasn't acting like a stroppy five-year-old the whole time. Lots of quite interesting plot developments going on.

Surprised they despatched Saul so quickly though, I assumed that part of the story was going to run for a while.

The bit when Annie realised no one could see her again was heartbreaking.

I like batshit morally ambivalent vampire dude. "Tonight, we're listening to Miss Kate Bush" - of course you are you big goth. The stuff with the coroner is going to run and run.

It could all get very bad indeed soon. Nina is kind of annoying but I don't want her to go in the werewolf exploding machine.

Much calmer and more considered than last week and much better for it. Some of the Saul stuff was proper creepy, particularly as we don't really know what it all means yet - and loved Terry Wogan talking through the telly. This episode reminded me why I liked the first series so much.

> loved Terry Wogan talking through the telly.

this was too much like Life On Mars

SPOILERS kinda... OMG this is at some kind of peak right now. I don't quite buy all the vampires in a humang world stuff but that is the big problem with the vampire mythos and it's never normally touched on, so it's brave that they're tackling it head on, and the AA group is a really neat idea. Annie's story seems to have resolved really quickly so be interesting to so where it goes next. But the real highlight is George, going from :D tourette's to :O full on psycho.

Some good humour too, as well as the tourette's, I loved 'the real hustle' bit last week.

yes, this is so good it's kinda wasted on bbc3 (9 on a sunday night too, odd slot)

Forgot about this, then caught up with the first three eps of s2 over the weekend. Really enjoying it. Most notable thing: the dialogue is 100% credible, stuff-British-people-in-2010-actually-say idioms, "proper" swearing like people IRL actually do etc. As the missus said: "None of it made me look up and go, 'nobody talks like that ffs'," which is absolutely crucial if they're going to take us on the rest of their crazy ride. Loving it, basically.

There needs to be more love for this show, I think it might be my favourite thing on telly. Charlie OTM about the dialogue, it's so natural. I didn't realise the writer was the guy who did No Angels, which was similarly excellent at having people talk the way people actually talk rather than the way people talk in TV shows.

yeah i wouldn't be able to kill any vampire that looked like Mitchell either...

Major lolz at Annie's George impression at the ghost baby. All of their stories are really developing in terms of trying to grasp what normality they can (and failing dismally for the most part) AND they've commissioned a third series so they don't have to wrap it all up in three episodes.

and an america remake too! :/

n

am going to pretend that's not happening, tbh. why the fuck have they renamed their channel SyFy? (actually have just googled why, and it doesn't matter, it still looks shit)

Also mean to say, the bit with the paedophile guy explaining his paedophilia to Mitchell in the terms that Mitchell himself used to describe his own vampireness was quite uncomfortable, and I love that things like that can sit alongside them talking shit about The Real Hustle and all the emotional Annie stuff and a whole ton of actual real lolz and then some pretty gruesome murdery stuff.

Yeah i think that's what i love most too - how well they manage to handle the banal, domestic stuff alongside the gore, like the three of them fighting over house chores and grocery shopping, George unexpectedly bonding with Hugh the barkeep... and how the supernatural stuff bleeds into all that without seeming completely contrived.

wish the US would stop making remakes of UK shows - is it really that much cheaper to remake a show than to just buy them? but I guess they all have this "if The Office worked..." mentality.

and an america remake too! :/

I'm only up to s1e4, but I've been kind of wishing it was an american show instead of a british one, because it feels like it's having to ultra compress its stories to fit them into a 6 episode series, and they could've been a lot more weighty if they'd had 24 eps to spread them over. Like, the who-killed-annie revelation would've been quite a shocker if I'd been watching for 3 months already, but after 3 episodes it was just "ah, ok". That Gilbert character could've had quite a moving exit if I'd met him more than an hour earlier. Mitchell making friends with the kid across the road felt awkward and weird because they had to squeeze it into the first 20 minutes of the episode. etc etc. Not that this means a remake is a good idea, obviously. I just wish we gave our drama a bit more breathing space over here.

Most notable thing: the dialogue is 100% credible, stuff-British-people-in-2010-actually-say idioms...As the missus said: "None of it made me look up and go, 'nobody talks like that ffs'"

This is true and great, but it's almost jarring in itself. At one point somebody said "I need a wee" and I did kind of look up and go "nobody on tv talks lke that!"

There is a difference, I guess, in that we (the UK, rest of the world) are likely to get way more of their references than they would of ours, so there is more of a danger of something being lost in translation if it's not remade for a US audience.

xp yeah I've thought about that, a measly 6 or 8 episodes vs an often unpalatable 24. 12 would be a nice compromise.

Yeah 24 episodes run the risk of having too many filler episodes - the 12-14 episode run is the best imo. More concerned that it's going to be on SyFy tbh, not a channel usually known for quality productions. suppose it depends on who they hire for writers.

wish the US would stop making remakes of UK shows - is it really that much cheaper to remake a show than to just buy them? but I guess they all have this "if The Office worked..." mentality.

I don't think it's a question of cost, Hollywood just seems to believe that the US market could not understand or relate to anyone who doesn't speak and look exactly like they do.

yeah and i guess there are certain things that UK shows can do that US shows can't - not sure where Syfy stands on nudity, but I can't imagine any US channel, HBO included, being able to show e.g. the kid watching the vampire porno scene.

BBC America showed it. (unless it was edited all to shit)

I'm still a couple of episodes behind but the bit with George and Mitchell freaking the fuck out after realising they'd missed The Real Hustle was great.

What channel did True Blood go out on in the US? There's a lot of nudity and gore in that, from what I've seen (half an episode).

HBO...the channel synonymous with boobs + swearing. (ie Same channel that aired Deadwood & Sopranos)

was thinking more that there was a kid involved but then i remembered that The Wire had lots of scenes with children and guns... so i guess kids and porn isn't that much of a stretch?

i still don't know what SyFy's like wrt to things like nudity and violence anyway.

I made the mistake of watching the pilot first, and man, do I prefer the casting/acting/directing - even the accents! - of the pilot to the first episode of the first series. Kind of bummed, but I still want to give it time.

I don't remember the pilot but this makes it look way more lol goth than the series proper:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BeingHumanPilot.jpg

does wikipedia block copyrighted images?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BeingHumanPilot.jpg

Finished S1, that finale was RUB.

How so?

Inconsistency of tone, pace, characterisation. All out of the blue too, it'd been fine up to the end of E5. Eg That scene where George vists the priest and seems to leave with a new found sense of confidence...but then in the very next scene he's blubbing at the kitchen table about being scared. The ghost lady suddenly getting superpowers was clunky. The fact they'd been building up to something huge for the whole season, only to switch to "ah, if we just kill their leader it'll probably all die down again". And a few other bits and bobs along those lines. Didn't hate it enough that I don't want to carry on with S2, but it was definitely a sudden and surprising dip in quality.

I like batshit morally ambivalent vampire dude. "Tonight, we're listening to Miss Kate Bush" - of course you are you big goth.

am now just catching up and bummed that ^^this guy is dead. dude was the only non-annoying vamp around.

he was great. i didn't catch how mitchell survived?

yeah me neither. he said ivan saved him... how, i don't know. chalking it down to being human logic (anyone who can tell me the exact extent of annie's powers - whether she's a poltergeist or not, if and when she lost/gained any of her haunting powers - gets a cookie).

Ivan jumped on top of him to shield him from the explosion.

I do not understand Annie's powers, like the randomness of who she is visible to, and why her clothes change in small ways but she's doomed to stay forever in a grey cardigan, leggings, white t-shirt/vest and big boots, albeit infinite variations thereof. And how she can carry solid mugs but still walk through walls and stuff. And how she, for example, must still wash her hair and whathaveyou.

i think up until her bad boyf tried to drag her over, she'd become visible to everyone. now she's back (for unclear reasons admittedly) to only being visible to other paranormals. even the psychic stageshow guy couldn't see her.

Also they'll be able to lower the stakes a bit next series after consistently raising them year after year. I'd be quite up for a series of just Tom, Hal and Alex faffing round the house.

Lol "stakes". Agreed this season's trio worked well, and I have no worries about Alex taking over from Annie. The whole Eve thing was a bit RTD Rose for my liking, but the resolution was far more neatly done.

Hopefully Annie will finally be able to change her clothes.

And yeah I didn't really see the new trio coming - lol idiot - but have high hopes, agree that a more domestic series would be good.

Oh btw I thought Gatiss was brilliant, I wondered how they were going to manage to make the old ones actually scary but his make-up and demeanour really did the trick. Plus of course he is more or less by now an actual elder statesmen of British weird tv, which fitted perfectly.

(& much better than Mark Williams did)

Cutler disintegrating was pretty revolting, ditto all the maggots in Alex's neck. They clearly had a lot of fun with all that.

re Annie's clothes, nice throwaway line from Alex about being stuck in her date clothes.

I'd be quite up for a series of just Tom, Hal and Alex faffing round the house.

This series was pretty much that, I thought. Budgetary restrictions, no doubt - Many episodes where they didn't venture far from the house, just back and forth from the cafe, Cutler's vampire lair, and so on. Virtually no werewolf transformation cg either.
This was the best series yet though. But I'll miss Cutler.

Yes, Cutler was good. I love how they can have a massive character like Herrick be almost completely un-missed by introducing excellent replacements (not to mention George and Mitchell).

Herrick was a bit rubbish really, Cutler way better.

Aw, he was a massive part of the show though.

There's something of the David Thewlis about the actor who played Cutler.

On again tonight, bbc3

Good stuff. I've started seeing some chatter about it again on twitter, but had no idea it was this week.

never saw past the first series. now I see there is a US version. any good?

I just watched my first ever episode and enjoyed it a lot.

A decent if a tad confusing setup for what looks like an exciting season. The 18th century devil conjuring magick ritual was a bit handwavy and basically bobbins though.

PHIL DAVIS. Also, Hal going bonkers because he can't clean the house.

I watched this with someone who had never seen the show before and found myself squirming with mild embarrassment. The format feels tired at this point and the WWII scenes were awful. General feeling of 'here we go again' about the whole thing.

I liked Alex's take on the reality of being dead, but the rest of it didn't do too much for me. Though it was late and I was not entirely sober nor awake.

well this is ticking over ok, anyone see the trailer afterwards for the zombie thing though?

Not really feeling it so much these days, mostly due to Phil Davis sitting around cackling. Didn't really know what to make of zombie trailer, but it's zombies, so we'll probably watch anyway.

anyone watch the 'new zombie thing'?

could've been a black mirror episode i think (have only seen 75%)

forgot all about it. will try and give it a spin this week.

so what about the being human inception/blade runner ending?

I stopped watching this after Aidan Turner left, but now I'm catching up on the last two series on Netflix. I really like the new cast and the much darker tone of the whole thing, but it's weird how much television for younger people has changed even in the couple of years since this was made: it's so white and hetero and male. The female stories are about looking after people and making stuff better, while the male storylines are about killing and being heroes. And most of the vampires' victims are attractive young women.