a guide to being human…

Tags

A Guide to Being Human, annie, bbc three, being human, book, bristol, george, ghost, joanne black, Mitchell, pink house, toby whithouse, totterdown, vampire, werewolf

Have you been thinking about the past series of Being Human?  Remembering the Bristol locations, checking back on the hints and plot points that brought us to where we are now?  Looking for that perfect quote that’s just on the tip of your tongue?

What you need is a book!

A guide to being human [series 1-3] covers all that and more – reviews of every episode, including the pilot as well as information about the characters, the actors and the online content.  It’s written by someone who loves the show, someone who is just like you – a huge fan of Being Human.

Would I recommend it?  Well yes, I wrote it!

It’s available direct from the publishers Classic TV Press here and is also on Kindle from Amazon.  If you order from Classic TV Press and would like your copy signed please ask when you order and I’d be very happy to.  (It’s OK – you don’t have to…)

Here’s a taster from the chapter location, location, location…  This section is all about the Pink House…

Totterdown

Bristol was chosen as the location of Being Human for a number of reasons.  Firstly the show is made by BBC Wales, which necessarily limited the choice to cities in a particular geographical area.  Secondly, Bristol has the wealth of architecture and settings that fitted the feel of the show perfectly, with the slave trade angle being picked up by Declan O’Dwyer, the director of the pilot.  It seemed a sensible assumption that vampires could have used the slave trade to get into the country and to establish a significant base in Bristol, which continued until Herrick and Mitchell’s day.  Mitchell tells Seth about the first vampire to live openly in Bristol – Richard Turner in 1630: “The first to have a double life.  He ran for Parliament, was a slave trader, killed maybe, I don’t know, a thousand people.”

Totterdown, a suburb of Bristol, is where you can find the Being Human house and many of the exterior locations used in series one and two.  It’s a distinctive area of tightly packed steep roads with classic Victorian terraces, rather less classically painted in an array of colours, giving a slightly seaside air.  Vale Street is reputed to be the steepest residential street in England.

Totterdown grew rapidly in the late nineteenth century and was mainly built to house the workers from the nearby Temple Meads railway station and other central Bristol industries.  It was mainly a working-class area serving local industry, but is now a popular choice for younger people working in the city centre.  It is perfectly in context as the place where George and Mitchell would take up residence.

1 Windsor Terrace

The house where our supernatural trio take up residence is easy to recognise.  It’s a corner house at the apex of two Victorian terraces, it’s pink and the name of the road is clearly visible high on the wall.  The house began life with another identity – it started out as retail premises, like many other corner houses in the area.  Visible and easy to find – they are their own perfect advertising.  Also very appropriate for our trio, none of whom are living out the identities they were born with.  It is thought that the house was a pub due to the engraved window to the side of the front door advertising wines and spirits (George and Annie?!), but it would probably have been a general store – grocery, maybe a butcher’s and, of course, an off-licence.  In the opaque glass over the front door is etched ‘Corner House’ – nothing like pointing out the obvious!

The houses of Totterdown, like our trio’s house, show signs of decay, of water damage and staining.  Some have already been beautifully refurbished and some are yet to be loved.  If you want to hide but still participate, keep separate but blend in, then what better place than a pink house on a corner – neither flashy nor derelict, and just quirky enough.

In her article Ghostly Architecture on BDOnline.co.uk in March 2009, Denna Jones considered the colour of the house:  “The precise shade of pink is unknown, but ‘P-618’ aka ‘Baker-Miller Pink’ is a suitable candidate.  Used in correctional facilities and drunk tanks, it works physiologically to reduce aggression.  Think of it as Totterdown’s passive community assistance to rein in the anti-social proclivities of the dead, the undead and hirsute half-humans.”  Although, judging from Mitchell’s behaviour at the end of series two, he seems to have managed to override all the soothing effects of that very special pink.  It didn’t do much to calm the wolf at the start of series one either…  Maybe they should have painted the inside completely pink too.

Come inside luv…

The interiors of the house are filmed in specially built sets, designed to resemble the actual interior of the house.  It’s not an exact copy – HD cameras need space and the crews need room to move around.   It’s also far more controllable and adaptable an environment to work in.  The interiors are put together with incredible attention to detail and it feels as if it really was furnished and lived in by George, Mitchell and Annie and their very different personalities.

In the pilot, the estate agent tells Mitchell that the house had been a sculptor’s studio before being bought by Annie and Owen to refurbish.  Inevitably it didn’t ever get finished as Owen murdered Annie and then rented out the scene of the crime…

The house has clearly evolved – design is not how this interior came together!  There is 1970s wallpaper in the kitchen and I bet it is that plastic-y stuff that was just so cool and trendy back then.  There are changes of colour and pattern and the classic black and white tiles of the hall floor bisect the wooden floorboards of the downstairs rooms.  Plus, of course, the cracked tile – an ever-present reminder of where Annie fell and died.

After the first episode, when George transformed in the house, there are deep werewolf scratches visible on the walls and the rooms are left empty.  The werewolf shredded the furniture and destroyed everything else and they are left with the need for a trip to IKEA – Mitchell’s all-time favourite.  After that the downstairs rooms gradually develop and fill up with the eclectic clutter than makes it all feel very real (and I doubt any of it is from that well-known Swedish emporium!).  There are books, magazines, videos, tapes and an increasing collage of flyers on the wall by the door.  The kitchen is full of crockery, cereal and even a pair of fighting grannies!  There are lamps everywhere and plenty of comfy seating, although every time there is a crisis they all revert to sitting on the floor.  There are also stacks of board games, and in the Being Human book The Road we are told that these are mostly Mitchell’s and that Waddington’s The Vampire Game is a particular favourite!

Mitchell’s room

Andrew Purcell, the Set Designer, pointed out that Mitchell’s room is coffin shaped – a lovely touch and I’m sure it helps him sleep much more soundly.  There are decent-sized windows, but whenever Mitchell is there the blinds are always down; a sunny aspect is not a vampire’s favourite.  It has to be said though that the main factor defining Mitchell’s space is mess!  It looks rather like the habitation of a teenage boy or domestically challenged student.  Is this really Mitchell or just the role he is playing at the moment?  Looking closer there are clues that this is probably not just any 20-something’s lair.  It is full of odd vintage items – vinyl singles and albums and an old record player (yes, that’s what we had before HiFi, CDs and MP3); there are old film posters and quite an array of musical instruments.  Amongst the encroaching tide of clothes, odd shoes (very odd shoes) and old singles are a guitar, a saxophone and a squeezebox… and can he play any of them we wonder?!  Presumably 116 years give you plenty of time to take lessons and fit in some practice…

Annie’s Room

Annie doesn’t have a bed – ghosts don’t sleep – or much in the way of storage – ghosts cannot change their clothes.  There is so little in her room it seems to emphasise just how thoroughly Owen excised her from his life – no sign of her is left in their home.  She has an oversized comfy armchair and on the mantelpiece is a picture of Loveheart sweets – an image that somehow seems to sum up Annie’s sunny, affectionate personality.  Annie’s room is an old-fashioned pink, a dusty greyish pink, a lovely contrast to her grey layers and a colour that is soft and gentle – much like Annie.

In series two, George swaps rooms with Annie so he can fit in his cage.  He moves in his bed and soundproofs the walls.  We never see what Annie does to George’s old room though.  I hope she kept the gnomes.

George’s Room

I suspect that when they first moved in, George and Mitchell tossed a coin and Mitchell won, whether by fair means or foul.  That left George with the smallest room.  It was a child’s room at some point in the past and has wonderful vintage wallpaper featuring cute happy gnomes.  The whimsical pictures couldn’t be a better contrast with the savagery of the werewolf.  Putting George in the smallest space seems appropriate – while he is the tallest of the trio he compresses his essential self to avoid attention and it is only the wolf that gets the freedom that George has lost.  The restrictions of the space seem somehow very apt.

He is considerably tidier than Mitchell (not difficult) and I can imagine he probably has a colour-coordinated sock drawer.  There are some other neat contrasts – George’s sleek DAB radio versus Mitchell’s rather chunkier transistor radio.

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Want to read more?

Was B Edwards, funeral parlour of choice for vampires, ever the real thing?  Do you wonder where the pubs are that are featured in the show?  What about the hospital?  The Facility?  What about the Barry locations?

They – and more – are all in the book!

a crucifix & a banana muffin… Being Human 4.04 “A Spectre Calls”

Tags

andrew gower, bbc three, being human, cutler, damien molony, ghost, hal, james lance, kirby, lenora crichlow, michael socha, review, series four, toby whithouse, tom, vampire, werewolf

Possibly the first Being Human episode that was genuinely, uncomfortably creepy, thanks to Alfie Kirby.  Ghost psychopath.  Or possibly sociopath. Or was it that gorgeous 70s ensemble that gave me the creeps.  (And a serious case of static cling…)

“Nina sent me”

James Lance’s Kirby slithers through this episode in the most oleaginous way, dominating, twisting and haunting it, just as Kirby himself does to our fledgling family.  A classic case of divide and conquer as he drip feeds us a little titbits about himself, going from a bit odd and maybe not the nicest ghost to a truly unsettling creature.

Just why is he so welcomed?  Well, Kirby is pretty convincing.  A salesman, a con man, a psychopath – to him the trio are easy prey.  Annie is still terrified of being alone, missing her friends and a little message from short and scary Nina goes a long way.  Tom wants a family, someone who cares and Hal… Well Hal is more resistant, perhaps because of the impact on his routines but he’s soon dragged in by Kirby’s comments to the others, casting doubt on his motives and intentions.  Where should he start?  Tom looks to be an easy mark…

Tom is the human heart of this series and he neatly reverses the previous werewolf dilemma, rather than a human who is learning to live as a werewolf Tom is a werewolf learning to be human.  It’s easy to underestimate the influence of his upbringing but despite his lovely manners and his killer instincts Tom has been raised away from normal life.  He doesn’t know how it works, how other people interact.  He’s never been taught how.  He misses McNair – how could he not – and Kirby notices his reaction to his early statement about werewolves not being ghosts and he comes back to it later, making sure Tom believes his dad can never return.

His tears are those of a boy and in so many ways that’s just what he is.  Trouble is he’s a boy in a man’s body in a hostile world – he reacts with alcohol and violence instead of upending his toybox and refusing to eat sprouts.  Above all else he wants – needs – a family and the love and support that come with it.  His wall of pictures – images of happy families, normal life – show what he yearns for and I do wonder if he resents McNair for depriving him of such simple pleasures.  Although I’d be very happy with a stake and a sparkler on my birthday (it’s soon if anyone wants to oblige!)

“Your toxic fucking blood!”

When Hal fights with Tom – Tom may start it but Kirby instigated it – we see a snapshot of a different man.  After Tom gets blood on his arm Hal pushes him away, shouts at him, he swears – something we haven’t seen before.  Is it the deep down hatred of werewolves, pain or just the fight that had made him change?  It’s another hint of just what he might be without radio four…

Tom gets drunk and beats up a vampire, one who conveniently pops up and shows his fangs.  Was that vampire a real coincidence or was it a Cutler set up, CCTV and all.  It’s the first time we see Tom acting other than with the clinical efficiency of an assassin – he beats the vampire with a savagery which is shocking and ends up in jail.  Luckily for him he gets a good lawyer!

So Cutler’s a lawyer, or at least appears to be a lawyer.  Nice suit, briefcase and on first name terms with the local coppers.  Is he the duty solicitor or just keeping a wary eye on proceedings?  He must have informants and contacts in the police – after all Fergus can’t have been the only one – he got that CCTV footage from someone pretty swiftly, or was he watching it live?.  What’s in it for Cutler to befriend Tom?  Just how useful would a tame werewolf be when you want to blame them for everything?  His speech about good vampires is clever, not overdone but just enough to make Tom think and especially at a point when he has been destabilised by Kirby.  Cutler has an in to Honolulu Heights now…

“I’m gay and I’m stray… no, that’s not it”

If you’re a ghost and your baby’s poorly – who’re you gonna call?  Ghostdoctors?  The NHS is going to struggle to deal with an invisible career so the only solution that presents itself is for Tom to play Eve’s dad.  And Eve’s Mum?  Hal.  Two gay dads – it’s a very clever play on stereotypes and political correctness.  Whatever the GP says that might be even slightly misinterpreted could land him in very hot water!  The best way to stop too many questions.  A very funny scene – Hal’s body language screaming with contradictions, his face when Tom puts his arm round him is priceless and the humour is only added to by Annie’s shouting and annoyance that the doctor is utterly oblivious to.

When he follows the GP, it’s the first time Kirby shows his full creepiness and he decides to make sure any risk posed by the confused but curious GP is annihilated.  Literally.  He gives him a heart attack.   We also get the snippet that back in the day he’d have used a knife… Something you’d like to tell us?  We find out much later that Kirby isn’t just a creep and a slimeball, he’s a serial killer; but irritatingly for him not a famous one.  His rundown of evil to Tom and Hal is beautifully done – we know he’s done some awful things, he piles on the detail, the toy sales, the children, the gullible mothers. This is getting very dark and it’s almost a relief when we find out that he cut the mother’s throats and a testament to the strength of Tom Grieves’ writing.

“Is it me, or do I have the worst taste in men… ever?”

Kirby keys into Annie almost instantly – does he know her background?  He knows about Mitchell but does he know Owen?  It’s not all that clear but what is plain to see is that this is yet another abusive relationship and a position that Annie falls into almost instinctively.  She let Owen dominate and hurt her, she let Mitchell walk all over her and now she lets Kirby sap her energy, drain her, chase away her friends and leave her vulnerable.  Just like Herrick he calls her nice with a sneer and eventually he kills her all over again and without anyone left to anchor her, Annie is smoke.

Then comes probably the best dance on Being Human – in a tank top – dig those 70s shapes!  He’s barely finishes before we find out who sent him – its future woman/possibly grown up Eve/whatever.  FW needs to know the deed is done – does she look upset that Annie is gone?  Maybe, but does that prove she is Eve?  Now all Kirby has to do is kill the baby but before he can Hal and Tom return after a heart to heart through Hal’s car window while blocking the whole road!  Can they stop Kirby?  They don’t need to find out – their presence back in the house changes everything and Annie materialises – all blue-eyed and blue-lit and powerful and she vanquishes the rather startled Kirby.  Done.

“I wasn’t expecting this”

Just what is Cutler’s plan?  I still think it’s to expose werewolves, making vampires seem to be a better way for the world.  He’s started to get Tom onside and now he’s using the Box Tunnel massacre.  It s a great plan – the press coverage that we saw in S3 suggested supernatural forces were at work and even a certain Professor Lucy Jaggat’s name got a mention.  Was the plan in action right back then?  Maybe it was…  The coroner is one of his allies and she reported human flesh in the killer’s stomach – well, the supposed killer set up by Wyndam.  Is Jason Healy a werewolf or will it suit Cutler if he just seems to be?

Hal is putting this together and he confronts the Coroner, scaring her although Cutler’s hold is tighter and she won’t talk, only to say it was another vampire.  She’s terrified and with good cause – as soon as she’s told Cutler what she knows she’s supper.  Good boy, nice and evil and not a drop of blood spilled on the shirt.  You have to admire that!

Random Musings…

If werewolves can’t be ghosts then Amy McBride was a bloody apparition sent to drive Lucy and pervy Lloyd bats.  Not a proper ghost.  She must have been something else unless Kirby was making it up.  Chances are he was.

“I’d kill everyone I encountered until I was sated.  Barry, Cardiff, most of South Wales”

“Right.  Not all bad, then”

Kirby must have had a TV set in heaven/hell/purgatory – Starsky and Hutch didn’t air in the UK in 1976, a year after his car/head incident.

Good handbrake on Hal/Leo’s old car!  How long did he sit at the end of the road?

One day Annie will let someone tell her things she really needs to hear.

That burn on Hal’s arm?  The nemesis?  Nah – that’s Toby playing with us!  Isn’t it?

Was Cutler a lawyer before he was recruited?  Echoes of Herrick, the Victorian legal clerk…

“Evil is like travelling first class. Try it once and you can never go back”

Hal doesn’t sing.  Commendable.  I wish other people took the same view.  However… does that mean it can’t be him in the 2037 flash-forward, yodeling New York New York to the oppressed and suppressed wolfies?

I’m sure it wasn’t but it’s a nice thought, as opined on the night, that it was Toby Whithouse driving the car that knocked down Kirby in 1975.  I’m sure that there must be an elf ’n’ safety rule about writers running over actors – but whether it prohibits or encourages it I’d be loathe to say!

“Now look what you made me do…”

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Now pull on that tank top and dance – you know you want to!

sex, lies & videotape…

Tags

annie, bbc three, being human, box tunnel, daisy, george, ghost, josie, lauren, Mitchell, nina, vampire, werewolf

“The Graveyard Shift” had what may be the weirdest sex scene on TV for a while when Regus ‘borrowed’ Annie’s memories of her first time in a way that I don’t think either of them were expecting.  And a way that I suspect he’ll not be too keen to repeat!  (Do I hear you say it serves him right?)

In the way these things do, it got me thinking about other sex scenes in Being Human and for a show about vampires, usually admitted to be on the sexy side of supernatural, there haven’t really been that many. (BTW – before anyone comments I know this isn’t a complete list – just a few tasters!)

You’d think Mitchell got more than his share but although he did score highest most encounters did not end well.  Lauren was bitten and reluctantly recruited in the pilot and Sadie from Ritzy’s was nearly supper, only saved by Annie hanging on for the ride.  Now that was weird too – maybe it was Annie and Regus that were made for each other, not Michaela.  Mitchell did manage to have (relatively) normal sex with Josie, albeit after he’d tied her to a bookcase and was supposed to have killed her and for a brief moment it seems that he might manage the same with Lucy.  Well, he did but she had other ideas – you’d think those finely tuned vampire senses might have noticed they were being poked in the nipple by a church pew stake, wouldn’t you?

When Mitchell was clean, off blood,  it seemed that his allure faded somewhat – his initial attempts to chat up Lucy were just – well, very George!  Maybe it’s all about hunting; the urge for blood gives a level of charm that brings the vampires willing victims.  It makes perfect sense as Hal tells Tom he doesn’t do ‘chatting up’ – if he’s been clean for 55 years he’s presumably been celibate as well.  Hmm, all those pent-up urges!

Pent up urges were the least of Mitchell’s problems with Daisy!  After they had indulged in some meals on wheels in the Box Tunnel they revelled in each other and a liberal coating of blood.  It seems that vampires have no real issues with having sex with each other, it’s just those tasty humans that cause them to fancy a nip as well as a… (insert your own joke).  I am glad I didn’t have to wash the sheets.  Or clean up the hotel bathroom after Mitchell and Lauren had some bloody playtime.  Vamp sex seems to be dirty in pretty much all the ways you can think of!

Mitchell’s attempts at a proper relationship with Annie were a non starter – she is non-corporeal after all, and stuck in her leggings and ugg boots.  Even her sex list (written in multicoloured pen) didn’t help and her attempts at talking dirty were way more terrifying than Mitchell had ever managed to be!

Annie’s only other relationships were non starters – Saul wined and dined her, well took her to the pictures and offered her olives and stuff before lunging – and then trying to drag her to hell.  Landlord Hugh’s sweetly unexpressed passion was thwarted by Annie becoming invisible again and she made sure he reconciled with ex Kirsty, wanting to see him happy.

After Lauren was made a vampire and then abandoned by Mitchell she was used by Herrick to try to tempt him back into the fold. Part of the plan was a DVD, posted through the letterbox of the Pink House.  It was a vampire snuff film, a human having sex with an invisible (on film) Lauren and then being killed by her.  I can’t help wondering just how his agent proposed this to the unnamed brown-duvet-cry-for-help-man.

“No it’s a great job… BBC, yes…  vampire series, yes… well, no you don’t actually get to speak… what do you do?  OK, you have simulated sex with an imaginary partner and then die.  Hello?  Are you still there?  Hello??”

Considering just how inept George was at chatting up women “You smell like a polo.  Do you have a hole?” he did OK.  Sam and Kirsty both fell for him despite the tobogganing and the clowns; although we kept out of their bedrooms except to see that little Molly watched George sleep.  No, that child wasn’t weird and creepy at all!

The wolf in George did imbue him with a certain… vigour.  His first time with Nina after she earnestly lectured him about treating his ‘problem’ was on the cusp of a full moon and left her – amazingly enough – speechless!   Despite this great start they did have some ups and downs – after Nina got scratched there was no nookie at all.  Once they settled into the big brass bed at Honolulu Heights it seemed as though they had found an even keel and Nina had found Ann Summers – a night in the scratchy suspenders just slightly ruined by Mitchell looking for a wireless.  As you do.  Their werewolves, however,  had no qualms about a bit of hairy hanky panky and we know where that ended up.

The wolf also lead George into Daisy’s arms – they engaged in some rather rampant alfresco frolics after the full moon.  I wonder if George ever realised that Ivan was there and that really he was just a notch in Daisy’s scrapbook.  In Barry George remembered Daisy with a lingering pleasure at her surprising strength, how she was tenacious… limber… and his dreamy reverie got him some very old-fashioned looks from Nina and Annie!

On the ghost front, Kathleen left baby Tim/Rufus with Annie while she went on a date with a dead fireman.  She was quite a while so presumably ghost to ghost relationships are possible?  Maybe we’ll find out, maybe 70s ghost who we meet next week might fall for Annie.

We’ve also seen vampire orgies hosted by the lovely Richard and Emma in their House Beautiful home, billiard table and in-house gimp both neatly covered in wipe clean plastic.

Adam wasn’t terribly impressed with the orgy – it was rather Abigail’s Party to be honest – but he may have been a touch scared.  Lack of experience, scary dressing gowns – who knows but sadly Adam was never going to get it on with anyone!  It’s bad enough being a greasy, spotty, rampant but terminally unfulfilled adolescent – you have to have some sympathy with a vampire who had to stay like that for thirty years!

Bit of fang anyone?

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Be very careful when watching unmarked DVDs…

the bees knees… Being Human 4.03 “The Graveyard Shift”

Tags

annie, bbc three, being human, damien molony, ghosts, hal, herrick, Jason Watkins, lenora crichlow, mark williams, michael socha, regus, review, series four, tom, vampire, werewolf

We’ve had frantic, we’ve had touching and this week it’s all about the funny.  Probably the best collection of quotable lines in one episode!

A flashback to 1855 (lots of 5s in this series) and some rather clever location scouting – a staircase, some pictures, two and a half costumes and it all looks quite convincing.  Oh and some SERIOUSLY dodgy fake hair…  History tells us Fergus and Hal were at war, the Crimean War presumably and home on leave.  (Please don’t tell me Florence Nightingale is a vampire…)  Fergus thinks ‘they’ are scared of Hal – he lists Wyndam, Ivan and Hetty, names we know and then Jacob who we don’t.  Mr Snow, of course, would not be scared… You can guess who Mr Snow is.  Really, you can!  He seems most surprised about Hetty – it strikes me she’s scared of very little.

“And if you do start eating people, we’ll just have to try something else”

In contrast to bloodied Hal, we have harpsichord Hal, rigidly keeping to his list, not caring much that Annie and Tom have resorted to ghostly shoplifting to keep Eve in Huggies.  But it’s OK, McNair said it doesn’t count if it’s a big shop.  Right.  I presume he means a large organisation and not a long list.

Putting Tom and Hal in the cafe together was inspired, Hal’s deadpan despair and the perfectly squared cloth action for cleaning tables were totally in character and Tom’s well meant help and suggestions came across as genuine (except for the spare stake of course!)   I could rhapsodise about the nuanced comedy, the lovely lines, the little glances, the picking up of Nuts with a glove… but I hardly need to as you’ve watched it yourself.  Haven’t you?  Then you’ll know how funny it was and I can move on!

It was cute to see Hal and Tom slowly beginning to bond, have they realised yet that maybe they aren’t so different?  Tom is naive and young in many ways but in others he’s old before his time.  Hal is certainly old but having been sequestered away for 50 years he’s out of time too.  Tom’s old-fashioned courtesy and Hal’s olde worlde manners (which presumably slip somewhat when hunting!) put them both out of step with modern life.  Both spent so much time in isolation – albeit with people who loved them – maybe they can find the right way to exist in the now together.  (And can that existence exclude that frankly indigestible looking cheeseburger…)

It’s worth remembering that when we saw George and Mitchell in the pilot they already had an established friendship and so short cuts and assumptions could be made.  We accepted they were best friends because Toby told us they were.  Here we are seeing Hal and Tom find their friendship – they are forging those bonds in front of us and it’s very convincing.  The camaraderie – still a little wary – was unspoken but right there by the time the Antiques Roadshow came on.  (BTW – what was that vase worth??!)  When they naturally included Annie in their deliberations the pleasure in her face was clear – she’s the bond, the glue, both to the past and the future as well as the link between the boys and that they want her there means a lot.  Annie’s fear of being alone has receded again.  But for how long?

“Are you taking the piss?”  “Well, they started it”

I wasn’t sure about Regus on first look but he played a blinder in this one and let’s face it, you have to love a vampire in a Team Edward T-shirt!  Regus is a vamp-geek, a vamp-nerd or maybe just a bit of a sad-vamp.  He has vampire asthma, reads mildewed scrolls in basements, puts pin-up posters on his bedsit wall, has a largely imaginary sex life, a varied collection of T-shirts for all occasions and – worse of all – his lunch fights back.  I want to feel sorry for him, really I did, but I’m doing about as well as Annie did in trying to keep a straight face after their in-tents experience. (I’m sorry.  I’ll get my coat…)

Regus seems to have warmed to Annie, despite her love of a good doorstep row – and he’s willing to trade.  Let’s not revisit the weirdest sex scene I’ve seen for a while except to say that if that’s Annie’s first BF he must be the one who posted nude pictures of her on the internet. Well… lets kind of hope they were of her and not of Regus – actually let’s not hope or even think about this at all!!

Once he’d tucked his vulnerability back in his trousers Regus did ‘fess up to what he’d found.  A nemesis.  Well, of course – you have to have a nemesis.  With a burnt arm – if you interpret literally, which would be too easy.  Could be a fire arm, a weapon, could be a bit of a suntan – which may rule out a vampire unless they hit the FakeBake.  And just what is Tom cooking up with the used chip fat?  Fire? Flames?

Before he headed off with his home-made girlfriend in a haze of hopeful anticipation we did get a (slightly spurious) reason why Regus would want to save the child he thinks will destroy his race.  He doesn’t want to see 400 years of work wasted and it’s two fingers up to the cooler vampires who never really took him seriously.  Do you think he may have had his head flushed at some point back in Stoker Exports?

“You’re not very good at being a vampire, are you?”

Michaela – goth girl, emo chick, would be poet, generally all round irritating ‘look at me – gosh I’m soooo weird’ type.  Caricature? Yes.  Cliché?  Yes.  Funny?  Undoubtedly – although she trod a very fine line.  A glove on one hand might – might? – be a pretension but could it be covering something?  A burnt arm maybe?

She may be a parody but haven’t we all met a Michaela?  Somehow she and Regus gel and the passing remark from Hal, asking Annie if she ever met Ivan and Daisy may bode well for them.  Or may not.  I really have no idea!

“I know who you are”

Fergus gets a chance to show off this week – firstly in the flashback with echoes of the genial evil that Herrick did so well and then just plain scary when he find Annie and Eve in the park.  A busy day for him, in no time at all he tracks down Hal by the bins.  His reaction to Hal is interesting – he kneels to him, calls him Lord.  In jest?  In homage?  Could be either – he’s certainly very keen to get Hal back on side and he offers him power.  For Fergus having Hal in charge is the obvious solution, he seems to have no claim to take that place for himself.  It’s hard to say if Hal is truly tempted – Fergus has no doubt that he’s back on his side but Hal double crosses him and stakes him.  Damn.  I was starting to rather like Fergus, now he’s in the Hoover.  I suppose at least you’d always know where he was… (I’m trying very hard to avoid doing the “stake ‘n’ vac” here.)

What was interesting is that it was never clear which side Hal was on until the crunch.  Now that’s worrying.  Tom and Annie seem convinced he’s with them but can they really be sure.  That tiny slip about the Old Ones, Hal says he needs to be there to greet them, hastily corrected to being there to face them, makes me wonder.  Hal is 500 years old, unimaginably old.  Is it all about him?  Are the other lives just a detail, something in the way of him either saving or killing Eve to save or end the vampires.

Hal killed Fergus – ostensibly to protect Eve after being utterly convincing that he was back in black, as Herrick would put it.  But why?  Was it really to protect Eve or to protect himself?  Fergus knows him, and knows him well – they go way, way back.  What might Fergus have known that Hal wants kept secret – maybe he just doesn’t want to relive those blood soaked days but is there more to it than that?

The acting honours this week were fairly evenly shared but the award (there isn’t an award) goes to Damien Molony and Michael Socha for their budding bromance.   Completely convincing and rather sweet in how they protected and stood up for each other – while still competing!  Lenora Crichlow was great – her reactions to Regus were spot on throughout and her not watching the tent experience (just like she didn’t watch Lauren’s vamp snuff film) and her efforts to keep a straight face were impossible not to like.  I’ve noticed that Lenora always raises her game when working with, shall we say, a more established actor.  With Mark Williams she matched him look for look and line for line – just as she did when working with Bryan Dick as Sykes and in her rare scenes with Jason Watkins.  I’d love to see her really stretched, her scenes with the younger cast are still perfectly competent but more relaxed, although that may be deliberate.

So we end with Tom and Hal, the start of a friendship, the start of trust between them.  Annie trusts them and between them she thinks they can keep Eve safe.  Find a life together – the four of them.

Nice thought.

So not going to happen…

“Sometimes it leaves me positively giddy”

Random musings

That’s not bloody Aldi – that’s Waitrose…

Fergus joked about how scared the other vampires are of the War Child, he didn’t get it and he had a knife pointed at her.  Maybe she got her revenge?  Maybe it was Eve who deflected the knife not Annie…

£1.50 for a cheeseburger?  OK it looks pretty awful but damn, that’s cheap!

A very neat switch over from The Real Hustle to the boy’s new show of choice.

Somewhere between episode one and three the demise of vampires switched from cracking into smoke to dropping into dust.  Curious.  New type of vampire or new type of special effects budget?

Where was DickSplash, sorry, Cutler?  Missing the sarcasm…

Does anyone REALLY think Tom is building a swimming pool?

I’m still laughing at “And I had a shield.  A red one”

______________________________________

Let’s go shopping!

too orangey for vamps…

Tags

annie, bbc three, being human, budgies, damien molony, dominos, hal, kia-ora, pearl and leo, vampire

Hal has a reputation.

He told Leo when they met that he was the only person in the building who was not scared of him, which, given that Leo was chained to the wall was an interesting viewpoint.

He is old, very old and in 1955 was coming to the end of a cycle of death, blood and destruction.  He was born in a brothel, not sure who was his mother, no idea who was his father.  He ran away to sea, ran away to battle and by the time he was recruited he saw no goodness left in the world.

“I have been so many people since then”

500 years. Impossible to imagine surviving that long.  How many lives has he lived?  How many people has he killed?  What has he seen in all those years – or maybe what hasn’t he seen?It’s interesting to compare the buttoned up, rigidly controlled Hal with his dominoes and his collar studs to the rather more louche figure who presumably rescued Leo from the chains and the cage fights.  That man laughed as he drank and told tall tales.

“Are there subtitles for this conversation?”

Hal is a man to be feared but Pearl certainly knew him well enough to slap him round the head with a newspaper – although his face showed just how utterly undignified he thought that was!  Very hot on dignity are vampires – that was Herrick’s main complaint about being dismembered by George.  Pearl and Leo had lived with Hal for over 50 years and seemed to have no fear of him, confident that their help and support had kept him clean and kept them safe.   Not to mention keeping the world safe from Hal.

He sets up dominos in intricate patterns, over and over and over again.  He never knocks them down, it’s all part of keeping control.  In the chaos of losing Pearl and Leo – not to mention the general chaos that seems to pervade Honolulu Heights like the smell of Airwick – he knocks them down for the first time.  The start of something… but what?  What else has he set up that is about to tumble down around his ears?

“Have we finished flirting?”

The Hal we are starting to know is still an enigma, although with a nice line in dry wit.  How much will he confide in Annie and Tom?  Will he loosen his collar, kick off his shoes and get comfy?  Hmmm not sure about that!

Maybe it will all come down to management – Leo has given Annie instructions on how Hal must be protected – as well as extracting a promise from her to care for him when he and Pearl have passed over.  We already know how seriously Annie takes her promises.

Bur if it comes down to a choice between Hal or Eve who will Annie protect?

A vampire is for life not just for Christmas…

Or how to look after your vampire – what are the Hal-management guidelines?

Avoid people. People people.  So just all people then.  Good start…

Stay well away from budgies.  Yes, maybe it did only happen once but why take a risk?

There’s a brilliant piece of extra content on the BBC Being Human blog here. It’s a letter.  Beautiful penmanship, neatly numbered pages and an explanation (and apology) about the dire fate that befell Coco and Cheep-Cheep, stars of the Miniature Circus.  It’s a measure of how quickly Damien Molony has nailed the character of Hal that you can hear his voice as you read.

No small dogs.  Avoiding all small animals is probably best.  See above.

No blood – as if that one wasn’t quite obvious.  I suppose it might slip our minds.

Finally, most importantly, the one temptation Annie must remember above all else – this is the biggie.

No Kia-Ora.

Why?

We don’t talk about it…

maybe we find each other… Being Human 4.02 “Being Human 1955”

Tags

andrew gower, annie, bbc three, being human, cutler, damien molony, ghost, hal, lenora crichlow, michael socha, pearl and leo, review, series four, tom, vampire, werewolf

After last week’s killing and scene setting spree (I’ve just about got my breath back) a quieter episode.  Although it would be foolish to think it was lighter – it isn’t, although more obviously humorous than Eve of the War.

“I think we’re here!”

The supernatural trio we met briefly are on their way to Barry, called by the voice of an angel.  Well, brainwashed by the honeyed tones of That Woman, coming through the music centre to Leo, the dying werewolf.  I’d stick to Satchmo…  So, off they trot and turn up on the doorstep of Honolulu Heights looking for a saviour, the baby that will save the world.

(Can I just say at this point that the quasi-religious theme was wasted?  Either run with it and embed it or give it up but it perched on the plot like a good idea no one quite knew what to do with.)

But why would Annie invite these people into her home?  And after last week, especially a vampire?  Well, she needs them and they need her.  Annie knows how lonely she can be, the time she spent haunting the house she died in, unseen and unheard.  She’d faced that loneliness again when Mitchell and George intended to leave, move on with Lucy and Sam and now she faces it again.  Could she bear it?

Annie was never a mother in life, she was so young when she died but all she wants to do is look after people, care for them, fuss over them – it’s what she sees as her role.  She sees Tom alone and bereaved like her, Leo dying and Pearl and Hal with uncertain futures.  Of course she tells them to stay.  And she almost admits she needs something new to focus on.

It’s another distraction for her.  Annie has always covered her emotions with a range of displacement activity from cleaning the kitchen and following the postman to becoming the Miss Marple of the Box Tunnel 20 investigation. All to avoid thinking about things she’d rather not dwell on.  Combined with an almost manic cheerfulness it helps her carry on – to care for the baby that she promised to look after.  Hal sees through her, calling her on the mask she wears – he has one just like it – and for just a moment her sorrow shows.  But life – or more correctly death – goes on.

“Are you somehow drunk?”

Annie’s manic cheerfulness and tendency to drift into the ridiculous can be grating.  I’ve said for a long time that I want to see kick-ass Annie, taking up her powers and going for it but, well, it isn’t in her nature.  She is scatty and ditsy and loving and rather mad and quite annoying.  It’s just the way she is although if I’d been Owen I may have pushed her down the stairs earlier!

There are clear flashbacks to her past, Lisa McGee also wrote “Daddy Ghoul” 3.06 when the Auden/Cheryl Cole mix foresaw the incantations she dragged up from bits of remembered prose.  In S2 Lisa wrote “In the Morning” 2.06 where Annie joined the mustachioed Alan Cortez to distract herself from Mitchell and George’s moving out plans.  She helped souls move on – both the dead and the living when her mum finds a sort of peace.

Actually, let’s go back to that ceremony over the baby…  I didn’t like it much at all.  Too close to the Vampire Recorder in his Courage bar towel pinny only last week.  On a second watch I did see more to it – apart from Annie really wanting to help, she also wants to impress the newcomers and – let’s be honest – put Tom’s nose out of joint!  He’s sure Eve is just a baby, Annie isn’t and this is how she intends to convince him.  She didn’t.  Still not in favour of the way it was done though but maybe we’re back to the unnecessary religious references again.

“Thou shalt not hide stakes in my shrubbery”

Tom is lost too although he is determinedly carrying on with his self-appointed mission.  He lost the family he thought he had when he found out the truth about McNair and then had to mourn his real family.  Losing McNair, his father in all but blood, came too soon after and he has to find a way to carry on.  Unlike Annie Tom has never been alone before and he doesn’t like it.  He’s been protected by McNair to the extent that he is an emotional adolescent, his depths yet to show.  His pleasure in having his own room and being able to put an image of happiness – Leo’s engagement ring – on the wall is clear.  He’s never had a room before.  Tom is such a fantastic character, beautifully contradictory – naive and knowing, a killer who dotes on baby Eve, a ruthless assassin who politely accepts Annie’s House Commandments.  Well, almost.  I suspect that there will be an increasing number of footnotes before long.

Tom’s uncertainty, his ambivalence about McNair shows only for a moment.  He knows he isn’t doing what he asked of him in that last heartbreaking letter, he’s not living a normal human life.  How could he?  he has no experience of it, he doesn’t know how to.  He has McNair’s necklace of fangs in a box with the letter but instead of carefully threading on the new teeth he has collected he just throws them in, not sure he wants to be what he is, or what McNair wanted him to be.

I thought for a moment that Tom would have wanted to ask Leo about being a werewolf, about how he has survived all these years.  But that wouldn’t be Tom.  Unlike George he accepts what he is, it doesn’t occur to him to question it and he had McNair to guide and advise.

“Over 55 years and I’ve never had to change my line up”

I wonder how many ghosts Pearl has met.  Annie has only met a few and they both seem to think they are unique while constantly betraying their similarities.  Pearl definitely got the best dressed deal though, loved the red petticoats!  Might they have become friends one day?  I really don’t know… not after Pearl dissed the tea!

Pearl and Leo are just lovely together and I am completely convinced on our short acquaintance that they are truly in love.  Annie helps them find their resolution and happiness as they head through their double door, yet another set of souls that she has helped to pass.  Maybe this is what Annie is still here for.  But it’s another promise. First Eve and now Leo makes her promise to look after Hal.

“I’d love to but I’ve made plans to sit in and self-harm, so…”

Hal watches them go, he’s happy for them but feels left out, bereft and abandoned.  But it’s more complex than that – they kept him clean for 55 years and his control depends on them and the routines he developed with their help.  He’s so close to falling apart.

This week belongs to Hal, lock, stock and double barrel.  We glimpsed him last week but this was the real introduction – and I liked what I saw!  A wary stillness, a contained passion, an energy you could see trying break through, a performance of a depth that makes it hard to credit this is Damien Molony’s first TV role.

We see Hal’s superstitions, his nervous tics and the dominos he builds to help control his true nature.  The moment he knocks them down for the very first time is quietly chilling.

His interaction with Tom is effortlessly comic, the odd couple, in all senses of the word!  Does the quest for the ring help them bond?  Sort of…  Hal saves Tom with a speech about killing, quiet, apparently unemotional but with such total conviction that you know that he has killed, over and over and over again – and right now he remembers every death.

“I need to vent and I don’t like him much”

But what about baby Eve?  What does Hal know?  He’s read the ancient symbols and after watching Leo and Pearl walk away from him he talks to her, letting the vampire slip through his control.  Is it That Woman urging him on from the TV or some deep instinct that is telling him who and what she is?  I’m not sure yet but Tom has no doubts at all.  He won’t kill Hal in Annie’s house but his threats are those of a man not a boy and I think Hal suddenly sees someone new, sees the danger under the accent and the eyebrows.

His loss drives Hal back to the pawnshop to feed on the blood he saw and smelled earlier.  He seems to have no fear of death – at 500 years old is he too strong or doesn’t he even care if he lives or dies.  We don’t find out as Annie and Tom arrive in the proverbial nick of time and Annie finally shows the strength I want to see.  Not with poltergeist powers and auras but with words and experience and care.  She talks of loss and pain, her voice raw, and they hear her.

“They’ve eaten my focus group”

A Cuttler-lite episode, sadly, I really want to know more about this new vampire but what we did get was honed to sparkling perfection.  Focus groups.  Why did Herrick never think of that?!  It’s a rather refreshing approach for the undead, rather coalition government in style but hopefully not quite so woolly.  I was just waiting for him to start up the PowerPoint presentation and wield a laser pointer!  I think I have an idea what Cutler is planning…

Fergus reckons he has the measure of Cutler while I think he hasn’t got a clue!  Fergus is shaping up nicely as the classic evil vampire – you do have to have at least one – but the look on his face when he heard Hal’s name was interesting.  He knows him but just how does he know him?  He also clearly believes in the joy of a good munch…

Random musings…

Big Bad Hal. Scared of spiders…

Ghostly one-upmanship.  Metaphorically beating each other around the head with saccharin sweetness!

Oh and Annie?  No one has ever looked fashion-forward in leggings.  Ever.  Not even in the 1980s

Hal asks a stupid question – why does Tom hate vampires?  “Oh, they’re arrogant, egotistical, predatory, they often have stupid haircuts and what was the other one? There was another one. Oh yeah, they killed me dad, Hal”

On the wall of the warehouse – an ad for Stoker’s Tea Bags.

Who really sets up the dominos?  And how many times has someone sneezed?!

I’m going to miss Leo’s excellent taste in music.

Kia-Ora?  OK…

Last word this week to Hal – and can we really be sure whose side he’s on yet?

“I want her to kill us all”

________________________________________

I almost called this post “the beast in me”, the song worked so well in the episode but in the end chose a quote from the very first episode of series one.

So instead – here’s Nick Lowe with the song he wrote for Johnny Cash

bleedin’ werewolves…

Tags

bbc three, being human, george, herrick, mcnair, the clangers, toby whithouse, toxic blood, vampire, werewolf, werewolf blood

“Did you know, werewolf blood was toxic to vampires?”

That remark made by George in “Eve of the War” dropped into my ears like a very heavy thing dropped from a very great height.  My first reaction, which I probably tweeted (as you do), was

“Oh yeah? Since when?!”

He proved it neatly at the end of the episode by gnawing a hole in his own (part transformed) wrist and force feeding his blood to Griffin. He looked wide-eyed and horrified and then expired… blowing away into smoke, just how vampires do when they are staked.  Staking, previously thought to be the only permanent death for a vampire. Wrongly, it turns out. Well, probably.

I still felt as though this was a bit of pop up plot and slightly irritating.  I mean, if it was that easy why did McNair not know?  He was an expert in killing vampires.  Why did Herrick never mention it?  (I thought he told me everything – but that’s another story!)  What about the risk to vampires from the cage fights and the fact that they’ve been cheerfully beating up werewolves – without the apparent need for visors – for centuries.

A couple of incidents that have been raised in relation to this are when Seth and his playdates beat up George in “Bad Moon Rising”.  He got a good kicking and maybe that was so they could keep at a safe distance.  It may also answer the question about why vampires almost always wear gloves!  Yes they feel the chill (delicate little flowers that they are) but it also acts as protection.  George and Herrick had a bit of a scrap in the same episode in the hospital canteen but it wasn’t George who was bleeding, it was Herrick so no clues there.

I suppose the cage fights have been proved to be a limited risk to the vampire onlookers as usually the werewolves win.  It’s a rare human that draws werewolf blood and it could be that McNair was the only human winner.  Poor old Alan!  Maybe the werewolves’ blood loses its power after death.  After all vampires don’t drink ‘dead’ human blood.

It’s always been made clear that vampires loathe the smell of werewolves, that to them it’s a distinctive, unmistakable scent.  That is one of nature’s classic warnings – if you are vulnerable and can make yourself smell vile then it lessens the chances of you being eaten!  Maybe the smell is a natural warning to vampires to be wary?

It’s quite possible that the knowledge of the danger has been lost over the ages.  Most vampires rarely see a werewolf and if vampires aren’t regularly being killed or maimed by werewolf blood then why would it be a big deal?  Maybe only the Old Ones really know and remember the dangers and Griffin is/was an Old One.  He couldn’t resist goading George over Nina, he told him a secret and now George has told Tom – and I’m quite sure he’ll use that knowledge as a weapon should he need to.

One puzzle  – I’m not sure how Herrick managed to stab McNair with his rather tiny vegetable knife and avoid all the blood, there wasn’t a drop on him (that I could see anyway) so I’m putting it down to magic pyjamas.

Look, I don’t have all the answers – and magical pjs sound good to me!  OK?!

So I can accept the premise but what I do want to know is exactly how does it work?  Is the blood only toxic when a werewolf is a werewolf?   What about when they are in human state?  Does it have to be ingested – and how much?  What about if it’s splashed on a vampire’s skin?  Is that fatal, damaging or does it just smart a bit?

I would demand that Toby sorts all this out – soon as you like please – but I suspect it’s part of the bigger story line, possibly even part of the prophecies, so that isn’t going to happen, is it!?

Unless, of course, he really has dropped a damn great clanger!  He wouldn’t do that – would he?

Hope not…

________________________________________

And for your amusement – great Clangers of our time, well, Tiny Clanger anyway!

you never see a nipple… Being Human 4.01 “Eve of the War”

Tags

annie, bbc three, being human, damien molony, george, ghost, hal, lenora crichlow, michael socha, nina, review, series four, tom, vampire, werewolf

“I’ve said goodbye to so many people, I can’t even process it”

You can’t say he didn’t warn us.

Way back, not long after series three ended Toby Whithouse was talking about series four being a reinvention of Being Human, that it would be a different beast.  Inevitably perhaps, after the staking of morose and moribund Mitchell, but even more urgently when Russell Tovey jumped ship.  Sinead Keenan is also out, Herrick is dead, McNair is dead, Nancy is dead (or possibly undead).

Put yourself in his brogues – what would you have done?

What Toby did next was – frankly – rather magnificent.  He could have played safe, gone the familiar route but instead we got brave, ambitious writing and a roller coaster of an episode that felt miles away from a series opener.  OK, it isn’t perfect.  Bits clunked.  Loudly.  Bits were unsatisfactory.  Things happened off-screen that we would have liked to see.  But overall it was a cracking hour of telly, dense with plot, new characters, visual jokes and humour; it needs a second and third watch to get it all.

It felt like a hearty “Up yours!” to all those who shouted from the rooftops that Being Human was dead and buried – and I applaud him for it!!

“Even McNair gave me a name and he ate me parents…”

Wherever you thought series four would start it probably wasn’t in 2037! But before long we’re back in more domestic settings – a cafe where an apron clad Tom is serving a rather voluble vampire.

Tom – promoted to a lead character – is a revelation.  He acquits himself in the action sequences as well as we would expect him to but also shows a wonderful line in comedy.  His not-so-gentle hinting about all the empty rooms, that huge house, all that space is perfectly timed and he can also turn on the pathos.  Seeing him frantically wiping his eyes at George’s departure, not wanting to admit for a moment he might be crying was lovely.

“I need to be with my Nina”

Oh yes.  George.  Let’s deal with that – and that’s probably what Toby thought.  George’s death was expected but maybe not so soon although it does clear the decks for the new characters and allows viewers to concentrate without waiting on tenterhooks for him to kick the bucket in a future episode.

He was a dead man walking from first sight, unable to get over Nina, unable to bond with their unnamed daughter, desperate to kill the vampires responsible.    His half transformation, forced in order to save his nameless baby was perhaps a mutation too far for me, not convinced that a painted moon and The Moonlight Sonata in Greek would do the trick.  It was, however, barely a day since the full moon so I can probably go with an element of cell memory and willpower.  If I must.

Tears all round at the final scenes as he changed back – why? – and then expired in Annie’s ghostly arms, first making her promise to mind the baby.  Tom was instructed to look after them both leaving us perfectly set up in HH for the rest of the series. All we need now is a vampire…

I can just imagine Nina’s face when he finally arrives wherever WWs end up!  “You did what with our baby?!”

“Before you reach the first major city they’ll have raised an army.  On Twitter.”

Cutler.  New vampire.  Sarcastic new vampire.  So far no history and not a clue how old he is or where he’s come from, although his maker sounds to be of interest. Wyndam?  Herrick? Hoping!

He’s unimpressed with Old One Griffin’s plans to conquer humanity, criticises the medieval vibe, the Vampire Recorder, the obsession with history in a way that makes us realise he is someone who gets listened to.  Looking forward to seeing where he goes…

By the way – check out @Lycurious on Twitter.  Could it be Cutler? I think so…

“You, her, this place, together they have been my cage”

Another home with a vampire and a werewolf and a ghost, and I’m starting to think it may be more common than previously thought.  After all vampires and werewolves have always been close, despite their mutual hatred, and mavericks on both sides will drift together.  Add a ghost, desperate to be with people who can see them and it all sounds very practical.  It’s also a fine way to muddy the waters of a prophecy of a supernatural trinity.

This household predates the pink house by some time and Leo is aging, the next transformation might kill him.  A lovely turn by Louis Mahoney who puts real sadness into Leo’s eyes, knowing his death is almost here.  It’s Hal that draws the eye though – although appearing young he has an air of age about him, a gravitas that belies his face and although we only get a fleeting introduction to him here he’s clearly one to watch.  And hope he’ll swap that nice warm vest for a decent shirt.

The relationship of comfort and care between the threesome is made clear without words and the tragedy of their conditions and having to watch Leo suffer and fade leaves us hoping that they will find their miracle.

“We’re going to swallow the world up in one quick gulp”

So what else?  Griffin, Old One, policeman, didn’t go the distance – killed by George in revenge for killing Nina who was killed in revenge for killing Wyndam who George killed in revenge for… yeah, whatever!  Clears the way for Cutler though…

The vampire mythology, well, I’m useless at detecting, even if the butler did it I’d never work it out so I’ll just go along for the ride.  Mind, I can’t help wondering if Leo had a child in that other supernatural flat share.  And it’s way too obvious that future woman is Eve…

Regus, the Vampire Recorder, but for me the jury’s out.  Could go one way or another – very funny or very annoying.  This week I shall mostly be wearing a tea towel…

Bite sized treats…

Dead as a ducat intoned in unadulterated Brummie.

Stoker Import and Export – hoping this means a bit of fun will be made of classic vampire tales and glory.  I think Cutler’s made a good start on that already.

Catch of the day – the sign on the cage in the vampire HQ.

Baby in cat basket – love it!!

The bone table and although I have no idea what it’s for it’s a nice centrepiece.  Wonder who their interior designer is?

What do you make out of a skinned werewolf?  Gloves? Slippers? A nice rug?

“Who’d though the Old Ones would be so difficult to shop for?!”

Clunkers and niggles…

Off screen deaths often lack punch and emotion but are a necessary evil at times.  Sometimes it works – McNair with Daisy’s fangs, talking about how she fought, seemed a fitting tribute.  Nina and Wyndam’s absences had to be dealt with but Nina’s horrible, tragic end from a pack of baseball bat wielding vampires had no real drama or pathos.  Yes it was revenge on George for killing Mitchell and Wyndam but it lacked any real feeling.  Likewise the throwaway manner when we’re told that George killed Wyndam.  How did he kill him?  When?  Where?  Did he stake him or tear him apart as he did Herrick?  I would have liked to have seen Wyndam’s future left undetermined, Lee Ingleby made a huge impact in just two scenes and maybe, one day, he might have returned…

So what actually happened when George and Tom transformed together in the unlocked warehouse – apart from Cutler adding to his YT videos.  We’ve been lead to believe that werewolves would tear each other apart and surely these two would be fighting for dominance.  Tom and McNair were OK together, they had a pack relationship even though not by blood and George and Nina made furry love not war.  Tom and George were angry, on a mission and trapped together and I don’t see what would have stopped them fighting.  Oh.  I really hope Tom isn’t pregnant!

It was dropped in with a dull, heavy thud but apparently werewolf blood is toxic to vampires.  Really?!  At first I thought this was a slightly annoying revelation with a limited purpose but having put more thought into it I have a theory which I’ll post in a couple of days. Let’s just say for now that maybe it’s been a closely guarded secret and without Griffin goading him, George – and most werewolves – would have no reason to know.

When George locked his wolf in his handy bedroom sized cage he was safe for the night.  Vampires have been putting werewolves in cages to fight for years – they don’t get out either, or in, as we saw when Mitchell huddled in the cage with Annie.  I’m  not impressed with the vampire’s kennel arrangements if an only part transformed George could get out that easily.

What about Lisa, the now ghostly social worker?  There was no door to be seen and she certainly looked as though she needed to resolve Fergus’s casual throat slitting!  Will we see her again?

As I’ve already said the episode isn’t perfect, putting in George’s exit story on top of the new introductions might have been an element too far.  I certainly needed to watch it more than once to really ‘get’ it.

I’m still to be convinced about the future segments although the idea of a vampire ruled world is intriguing.  And just who was that voice on the radio?  Cutler?  Hal?  It reminds me of hearing Lia’s voice on the Box Tunnel Hotline.  I’ll see how it goes though, I’m certainly intrigued enough about the future woman who may or may not be Eve and just how she finds the past via her door.

All in all though there is more than enough to keep me hooked, I may be Being Human obsessed but I’m not prone to hasty decisions, each episode has to prove its worth.  This one did.  Not the best ever, probably not in the top five, but a damn good start.

The final words should go to Annie…

“So, this is how it starts”

Oh yes!

______________________________

“Yeah, but I bet the Magna Carta doesn’t have nipple on it”

The title of this post is from a John Cooper Clarke poem – “you never see a nipple in the daily express” which has been running through my head since Sunday night!  If you’ve never seen him before here’s a taster…

trembling with anticipation…

Tags

bbc three, being human, damien molony, george, ghost, hal, nina, series four, spoilers, toby whithouse, TV, vampire, werewolf, wyndam

(The title is almost a quote from the Rocky Horror Show.  If you want to read my Being Human/Rocky Horror mash-up it’s here.  Brain bleach can be supplied later…)

Yay!

Being Human series four airs on BBCThree (in the UK, sorry other countries)

Of course I’m excited and despite being a dedicated spoiler bunny (I search them here, I search them there) I really am not sure what is going to happen.

Huge round of applause to the BBC and Touchpaper Television for this – last year, series three was thoroughly spoiled by the interviews, the press pack – even the ‘next week’ segments.  This year it feels more like the run up to series two which had moments that genuinely left folk open-mouthed, with a cartoon style speech bubble over their heads reading “WTF??!!??”  I do really want one of those cushions by the way…

What I have read makes me think I’m in for a real treat and Toby Whithouse’s frankly legendary abilities with storylining and writing is the security blanket keeping my toes warm.

I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone who wants to remain pure and unsullied until tonight so, if you’re in that virgin territory maybe stop now while I speculate!

We know some things, assume some more stuff, guess at even more and I did start to try to write some lists but just tied myself in contradictory knots!  So – no apologies for missing anything as this is not a real list just my first thoughts. What are some of the things we know?

Well, we have new vamps – not least the domino wielding Hal., But here’s the rub, is he good or bad – I suspect dangerous to know comes as standard!

There’s a baby called Eve.  She’s something special.  Good or bad is again still to be seen but I suspect my wish that she a killer-babba is probably not going to happen…

No Nina, not much George.  It’s always sad to see people go – even in RL! – but life moves on and stories develop.  Repeat after me – change is good, change is good….

Tom is a main character – and I admit I initially had my doubts about this.  All washed away with his lovely prequel – a subtle sense of comedy that was a pleasant surprise and a perfect sense of timing.  Sheltered and innocent, protected by McNair – Tom has a lot to learn.  Although the killing vamps bit he seems to have mastered!

No Wyndam.  Sob.  (Sending telepathic thoughts to TW “Wyndam for series five, Wyndam for series five”)

Best of all… the Old Ones are coming.  Really coming, not like Lucy’s stuff from Amazon.  Retribution?

While I can waffle on forever – and with the tiniest of encouragement am quite likely to – the final words really have to go to Toby Whithouse (do I curtsey now?)

“As ever, Being Human lives or dies on the strength of the characters and the cast, and that’s why I think this series is our strongest yet.”

Oh and…

“News of Russell’s departure – and to Aidan’s before that – was greeted with rather wearying predictions that the show was now ‘over’. But I write this a few days after seeing the finished cut of episode 8, and I’m happy to report that it’s never been in ruder health.

 The new cast, the crew and directors and the other writers have pulled off something extraordinary and completely reinvigorated the show. I hope you’ll agree, rumours of Being Human’s death have been greatly exaggerated.”

ghoulies & ghosties & long-leggedy beasties…

Tags

annie, auras, being human, doors, ghost, gilbert, mcnair, sykes, toby whithouse

Ghosts.

Huh.

What are they good for?

While I won’t go as far as “absolutely nothing” it’s a bit of an unspoken question running through Being Human.  A ghost, a vampire and a werewolf share a house…  so much potential.  After all vampires are sexy, they have lots of mythology and (dare I say it) they are rather fashionable.  Werewolves are, well, not sexy – although someone might want to present McNair’s arse in mitigation m’lud.  They are intriguing – human but not human, and again there are lots of nice chewy legends to play with.

Ghosts are inevitably more amorphous and there are no commonly agreed legends.  Can you see them or not?  Can they communicate or not?  Why are they here at all?  A TW designed ghost is trapped until they have resolved something about their death so they can pass through their door, they can’t eat or drink, are stuck in the clothes they died in and can only be seen by other supernaturals.  They’ve seen the mysterious “men with sticks and men with ropes” when they died (as did the vampires) but they haven’t finally gone from this world yet.

Being Human has not yet fully explored the ghost world, and while we see Annie change, but not evolve, we are constantly being reminded that she is something different.  That’s all very well, but different from (or is that to) what exactly?

Annie has turned down death.  Her door popped up as Herrick popped in and left Mitchell in a bleeding mess. Not quite a case of turning death down as just asking it to pop back in a bit when she’s less preoccupied!  Refusing death – we are assured – made Annie something new, more powerful.  She could rent-a-ghost further, when she remembers to but even by the time she sees Sasha she still tends to run away instead of pop off.  She could hear the suffering of the dying – just for long enough to rescue Hedrick’s human herd from BEdwards, but not apparently since.  She also developed her own personal wind machine for appropriate hair effects for the duration of the rescue.

Annie’s visibility was linked in series one to her self-esteem and when she finally admitted the truth about Owen she could be seen by humans, to some momentary confusion with Nina in episode six.  Her visibility was removed as a punishment by TMWS&TMWR when Saul was unable to drag her through his door and down his nicely red-carpeted passage.  So not self esteem related at all then.

Sykes taught her how to close her door but how did he know how?  Do we assume he turned down his own door in a continuing terror of what lay waiting for him?  How would he know otherwise?  It didn’t make him visible or powerful though so what made Annie different?  He’d learned tricks but we have no idea where from.  Ghoul School?  All his skills left him just a ghost but he too saw Annie as something new, something different.

He also taught Annie aura reading, well, she read one and never did it again – there’s a theme developing here.  Shame she didn’t take a closer look at Kemp and Lucy (although I don’t want to think about what pervy Lloyd’s aura shows…)  Of course if Annie had read them and warned everyone series two would have ended with rather a whimper.  None of those skills seemed to cross Annie’s mind when Kemp exorcised her in S2, not a scrap of fightback to be seen.

Gilbert, the series one 1980′s ghost remains a favourite of many people even now – existential angst, music fascism and a Walkman, he died the year Annie was born and had never found love until he met her.  Falling in love with Annie helped him resolve his life and pass through his own door.  It was our first lesson – ghost 101 – Gilbert died, muddled along for a bit, found resolution, saw the light and passed over.  Simple.  Or maybe not.

So, other ghosts?  Can they shed light on the ghost world and just what it is that makes Annie different?  Well, no, not really.  The only other ghost we saw in S1 was Billy, one of Herrick’s human dairy who appeared to Annie to lead her to their rescue.  Maybe ghosts just aren’t that common, certainly Seth was a little confused by Annie asking her ”Can you, like, move things about and walk from one room to another?” Although you have to remember one thing about Seth.  He’s an idiot.

Series two brings us Sykes and then Kathleen and baby Tim/Rufus, all in the lesson of the week mould.  A whole theatre full of ghosts in episode six seems more hopeful but guess what? It’s another Annie lesson as her mum comes to a séance and finally lets go of some of her hurt over her daughter’s death and moves on, leaving Annie to consider moving on in her turn.  I didn’t say the lessons were subtle did I?!

One of my favourites was the brief peek at Hennessey’s ghost, a bittersweet moment when he really sees Annie for the first time. Then there’s the ghost that may not be a ghost, here’s Amy MacBride, dead werewolf – ghost or delusion?  Who knows but she’s enough to worry Lucy which isn’t a bad thing and petrify pervy Lloyd which is a very good thing!

Series three added few more – a glimpse of Adam’s Dad and Sasha going through their doors with apposite (and unsubtle) last words, the ghost policeman who watched his dead body quote Lia’s poetry and George’s Dad who turned out not to be a ghost at all.  So George and Nina can’t sense ghosts – is that true for all werewolves or yet another exception to the BH Rules?

By the end of series three Annie was nipping in and out of purgatory as if it had a revolving door seemingly free of the fear of TMWS&TMWR so what had changed?  Not a clue…

I really hope that series four shows us what Annie can do.  I shall have to grit my teeth and just accept that she is different and hope we’re going to find out why.  Lenora Crichlow said about series four “She starts to realise her destiny as a ghost – it is bigger than her, but it’s also empowering to know what she has been put here to do.”

She’s more powerful than she knows – Wyndam said that so it must be true.  I’d like to think that with a baby to look after, a vampire war to fight and the loss of her friends to deal with Annie will abandon the tea urn and draw together her door closing, light flickering, electric sparking, poltergeisting, rent-a-ghosting, aura reading skills and seriously kick some ass!

Please.