Spotlight on Fandoms: Being Human
Story
Being Human is a series by BBC3 that chronicles the (mis)adventures of Mitchell (a vampire), George (a werewolf), and Annie (a ghost) after Mitchell and George move into the flat already occupied by Annie. It started out as one of a series of pilots aired in the late winter/early spring of 2008 as part of an attempt at rebranding the channel; two of these pilots were eventually commissioned for full series, and of those two only Being Human was actually produced. The six episodes of the first series aired from January through March of 2009.
The pilot is of questionable canonicity, considering that afterwards, the producers decided to both retool the mood of the show from 'goth' to 'slice of life' and replace four of the lead actors - Mitchell, Annie, Lauren and Herrick - before the actual series started, but it chronicles the start of our set-up. Mitchell and George decide to move in together to help combat loneliness and find an 'in' with humanity. Mitchell breaks with the vampires of Bristol (interrupting one of Herrick's meetings to give them shit about their 'humans kicked us out of society' routine - according to him, it's bullshit, because the vampires butchered their way out) but not before killing and turning a beautiful girl called Lauren.
Happy to take to a new life, George still finds his newfound peace disturbed as a third housemate makes their presence known: Annie, a sad girl ghost who keeps to the house after chasing all of the other would-be tenants out. George isn't too charmed by her, but Mitchell convinces him to give her a chance.
And so, our band of merry misfits falls into a crazy rollercoaster of daily human life, vampire intrigue, werewolf self-loathing and one ghost's quest to reconcile herself with her death.
Characters
"There is a question you haven't asked yourself yet. If I exist what else does? You think you're the big bad wolf, you should see George on a full moon. You think you're a cold-blooded murderer? Mitchell was killing 80 years before you were even born. Don't you get it yet? I'm just the tip of the iceberg, I'm good cop. Look at you, so pleased with your grubby little murder, fact is when it comes to pure naked evil, you're an amateur. I want you to know you wandered off the path. This is where the wild things are." -- Annie
George Sands
"We're like the world's gayest ninjas." -- George
George Sands is your average twenty-something genius working a menial job for shit pay. ... Or, well. There's also the part where George is a werewolf.
Roughly a year before the start of the series, George Sands was vacationing in Scotland when he went for a walk with an American tourist, not long before nightfall. Which was a mistake -- it was, you see, the full moon, and there was a werewolf on the loose. With his throat and chest torn out, the American tourist got off lucky; George, having suffered only some scratches on his left shoulder, became a werewolf himself. He left home and ran away pretty much immediately after discovering this, on the next full moon, and was working in a cafe -- and living above it -- when he was attacked by a gang of vampires and saved by Mitchell, who took him under his wing and offered him friendship, as best he could.
With a stated IQ of 156, George is smart, and as it seems to follow for those with such intelligence, he is more than a little socially awkward; he's aware of this, though, and aware of how things 'tend to go'. When he sees his ex-girlfriend -- who he left behind along with his family when he ran away -- in the hospital where he works as a porter, George reveals that -- regardless what she thought -- he never believed that they would have lasted, because he felt she would eventually come to realise that he just wasn't good enough for her. This lack of self-confidence is apparent throughout a lot of the series.
The most important part about George's character arc, over the course of the series, is his struggle with 'being human' -- of fighting back the monster inside of him, his 'curse' of being a werewolf, and rejoining humanity. He hates the fact that part of him loves the change, loves what happens to him before and after, and the power it gives him scares him so very much. Above all, George wants to be 'normal' -- which, really, I suspect is something he longed for before he was turned into a werewolf.
Also, George provides most of the best humour of the series. Because who could forget lines such as, "We're like the world's gayest ninjas" (see above!), or, "Who wants some of my chair?"
Oh, George.
John Mitchell
"Where do I belong? Where do I fit? Who are my people? Where do my loyalties lie? We all choose our tribe. It's that need to belong, to live within boundaries, cause it's scary on the outside, on the fringes. Some labels are forced on us. They mock us, set us apart 'til we're like ghosts, drifting through other people's lives. But only if we let the labels hold. You can piss your whole life away trying out who you might be. It's when you've worked out who you are that you can really start to live." -- Mitchell
Back in 1915, a young soldier encounters a pack of human predators somewhere in the woods during World War I. He gives an offer: spare the lives of his men, and they can have his, as a vampire, no questions asked. The vampires agree - possibly because of Herrick's building obsession with him. A day later, Mitchell awakes in a pile of dead bodies, bewildered, and smelling of death.
That wasn't how he'd expected to die.
Cue nearly a hundred years later, and a hipster named Mitchell moves into one house with his best friend George... and that's where our story truly begins.
Mitchell has a strong moral center, and it's perhaps this that drove him to commit the atrocities that he did. He's a complete idealist at heart despite all of his experiences, hoping beyond hope that one cause or another (humanity, then the vampire effort to take over the country) will lead to a happy, utopian existence, free of the cruelty that both horrifies and fascinates him. To the vampires, he is a rockstar, whose murders rise far above their more pedestrian ones. Seth goes as far as to point out at one point that 'the best stories are about [Mitchell]', and these stories keep popping up amidst the vampires in the series ("And then Mitchell rang the doorbell, still holding the corpse, and the man opened the door-- and Mitchell says, 'Tomb service!'."). It's also implied that back in his younger days he had ties to the movie industry (to the point where he could pull a role as an extra in 'Casablanca' despite not being able to show up on camera) and probably had a lot of fun with the rise of the 60s.
But in the pilot, Mitchell decides to change - although he's been disgusted by the life for quite some time already. He's met George and been friends for a while now, and it 'feels like the time' to make a change. This sets up the 'addict in rehab' theme that follows him throughout the first series. He's quiet, and he's charming, albeit a lot of it is left-over predator instinct. He very much seems to want to be the big brother, but his fight against his addiction makes it occasionally difficult, and he defaults too easily to his vampire habits when people wind up leaving him - turning friends to 'save their lives'.
Well, that, and the fact that he has occasionally very unorthodox ideas about how he should behave in order to be a part of humanity. Ahem.
To summarise, the cast describes Mitchell as 'cool' and 'complicated', and that covers him well.
Annie Sawyer
"Not anymore. I am darkness. I'm death, vengeance and fury, fire and blood. Diamonds and bones. Sapphire! And... er... Steel." --Annie
Annie has been haunting the house for quite some time now. She always wanted an ordinary life, to die at an old age with grandkids milling about - instead she died in her early twenties, alone on the tiles of her new home. Her state as a ghost - unable to be seen by anyone but the undead - stands as a metaphor for the way she retreated from society herself, shy, unable to speak up for herself, unseen. But now surroudned by friends who can see her, she begins to blossom, slowly but surely, back into her full potential. When she finally finds her confidence at the end of the first series, she's radiant and powerful like a goddess, by far the strongest of the trio.
Annie is very much her own, dorky woman. She makes tea as a nervous tick (leading George to, at one point, complain that he couldn't make any tea - "All the tea's already been made!") and has some trouble spelling (in the middle of a dramatic scene over her own grave, she pauses to remark, 'Are there two e's in fiancee?') and brings a cheerful, oddball streetwise common sense to the house ('Maybe he got hit in the head. My uncle got hit in the head by a radio-controlled plane, once. From then on? Obsessed with pygmy goats.').
Her big issue is her ex-fiance, Owen, who still owns the house and landlords it with her eternal nemesis (and his new girlfriend), the 'orange pleb' Janey Harris. They left a lot of things unfinished, and those things spring up again in surprising ways across the six episodes that make up the first series. Annie finds her power in stepping away from him, in becoming her own self, in making friends and not lovers and finally glueing a very unorthodox family together.
Basically, Annie is made of love and sweet things and awesome pie, occasionally obnoxious, but never annoying. She could badger Gilbert the 80s Goth out of his funk - nobody else can stand up against that much joy.
Or, on one particular occasion, that chair.
Supporting Characters
Herrick
"My god, [Mitchell] and [Herrick] are like obsessed with each other. It is totally. Gay." -- Lauren
Herrick is, to put it lightly, a vampire supremacist. He's by far the oldest of the vampires we've met in Being Human so far, of indeterminate age. He sired Mitchell, who remains his favorite - down to obsession, as the Lauren quote shows. He's described by the cast to have 'classic short man syndrome', like a vampire Napoleon; in the bowels of Bristol, he broods on plans to take over the country, and the world when he's done.
Herrick shows up to tempt Mitchell back into the vampire lifestyle to the best of his ability, sometimes with results. His following has grown to great sizes among the other vampires, and his reach in terms of both manipulation and cover-ups is grand. He works as a policeman, using his job as a very succesful cover for everything else he does. Most people think he's a charming, unoffensive man who doesn't really stick out. Most people are wrong.
In the end, Herrick has made only one, vital mistake. He went after Mitchell.
And that gets George's attention. Dun dun dun duuun.
Seth
Annie: I'm a ghost actually.
Seth: Get out! Can you like move things about and walk from one room to another?
George: Yeah, I'm pretty sure everyone can do that.
Seth: Shut it, Digby! The only reason why I haven't torn your bastard face off yet is because I've just done the hoovering in here.
Seth is the dictionary definition of 'flunkie'. Really. Look it up in the dictionary, you'll find a picture of him. He's been Herrick's dogsbody for decades, even since before Mitchell joined them. He regards Mitchell with both envy and admiration for his 'golden boy' status. He's also a complete idiot who makes a habit out of cocking up assignments and staring at girl's breasts when they talk to him, but at least Herrick keeps him firmly in line.
Josie
George: My thing is a part time thing.
Josie: Oh right, I thought perhaps you were a wizard or something.
George: A wizard? That's ridiculous.
Josie: Trust me, once you've dated a vampire you tend to have a different criteria for what's ridiculous.
Mitchell's ex-girlfriend from the 60s, she turned back up in his life after losing her husband and being diagnosed with cancer. She still feels real affection for him, but finds herself concerned when it turns out he's bought into the vampires' new Utopian plan. In the end, she tracks down George to help save Mitchell before it's too late. Josie is strong and no-nonsense, and she and Mitchell have obviously never lost a fondness for each other. For him, however, she also marks the passing of time - something he'd like to stop.
Lauren
Lauren: And the blood Mitchell. Can you remember the taste? So rich and warm. You can have it again. As much as you want.
Mitchell: I can't, the cost is too high.
Lauren: Please! Who are you saving, really? Have you seen Britain's Got Talent?
Right at the start of the series, Mitchell gives in to his urges and wines, dines, and bites a twenty-year-old girl called Lauren. Afterwards, still sitting by the bed he murdered in, he makes his decision to stop once and for all and flees the apartment.
For Mitchell, this is all well and good, and a good step on the way to recovery.
For Lauren, it's the start of a nightmare, as the vampires take to her like she's an orphan they have been forced to deal with. She develops a quick obsession with Mitchell, stalking him in the hopes that he'll help her (Mitchell, it seems, is like stalker-vampire-bait). She and Mitchell eventually resume having a relationship, as a kind of disturbing funhouse mirror image of lovers. Despite her brash attitude, however, the vampire life is taking far more of a toll on her than she admits, and she's perhaps Mitchell's finest lesson in self-control across the board.
Bernie
Bernie: I could have taken them!
Mitchell: Well, I couldn't at your age.
Bernie is a young teenage boy who Mitchell befriends and takes under his wing after witnessing him being bullied. Mitchell, always happy to play the big brother role, is actually settled by Bernie's presence and begins to regain a few more upbeat notions about life, especially when he finds he doesn't feel the urge to kill around Bernie at all. Unfortunately, that all comes crashing to an end as Bernie unwittingly borrows the wrong DVD from Mitchell's, and his mother catches him watching vampire porn.
This kicks off a witch hunt that ends in Bernie being killed, and pushes Mitchell over the brink and back into rejoining the vampires, disgusted with humanity.
Tully
George: How did you find me?
Tully: You're a werewolf living in Bristol. It kinda narrows the field.
Tully first appears briefly in the first episode -- not the pilot, the first episode of the actual series -- and then features heavily in the second; he's a werewolf, like George, and he decides to teach George what it means to be one. There are lessons in wooing women -- which go horribly -- and George, in many ways, becomes Tully's mini-me.
And then George finds out the secret that Tully was keeping from him, which I'm not going to spoil for you, but trust me -- it's big.
Owen
"Hey, Annie! That the best you got?" -- Owen
Owen owns the building rented by George and Mitchell -- and is, in fact, Annie's ex-fiance. He starts off seeming more-or-less your average bloke, but over the series we learn more about him and his relationship with Annie... and the circumstances that led up to Annie's death.
Since Annie's death, he's started dating the ever-orange Janey Harris, who works in a tanning salon and 'actually thinks [that particular orange shade of skin] looks good'.
Gilbert
"Fun is such a bourgeois concept." -- Gilbert
Gilbert, the friendly ghost. He died in the 1980s of unknown causes, and has stuck around because of some unfinished business he actually isn't that fussed by. He's the quintessential 80s hipster, interested only in navel-gazing, sombre music and giving cops the finger. His ideas about fun are... unorthodox, but in the end, he becomes close with Annie, who helps him resolve his death.
Nina
"Saying 'it's not you, it's me' is a stabbable offence in my book and I can easily get my hands on scalpels." -- Nina
Nina is a senior staff nurse at the same hospital where Mitchell and George work, and she is sharp of both tongue and wit. In fact, her first encounter with George has her berating him for following the orders of a doctor in bringing a patient up from A&E; she is also the victim of Tully's advice to George on dating, and she thinks him an arrogant twat because of it.
Of course, when she finds George spending his day off to visit the same patient he'd earlier brought into his ward, because she has no family in the area, Nina starts to readjust her opinion of him, and the two start what's guaranteed to be an eventful relationship.
Why Should I Watch It?
George: I'm Jewish and [Mitchell]'s complicated.
Mark: Jewish people pray, I've seen Yentl.
George: You're very sarcastic for a vicar.
Mark: Yeah, so people tell me, and I feel very bad about it then I forgive myself.
Because it is made of win. No, seriously.
Okay, in more detail? It's a tightly-plotted, tightly-written, and tightly-acted show. It has its flaws! ... I'm sure it has flaws. I just can't think of any at the moment.
If you like shows that examine the human condition and ask, "Who's the monster, really?"; if you like shows that show the dark and the humourous, often at the same time; of you like shows that are just plain fantastic: this is the show for you. Being Human also has what is quite possibly the best example of 'the family you find' that we've seen. Ever.
Then there's the amazing soundtrack! Starting with the theme all the way down to the choices of appropriate 80s music in the Gilbert episodes, the music (put on deliberately by a character in the series to 'mask the noise') when we first witness George's transformation (NWS), and beyond, this show has one of the most amazing soundtracks I've ever heard.
It's only six episodes. It rocks. Watch it!
Where to Find It
"I'm not eating raw meat like an animal just because a ghost is ovulating!" --George
Unfortunately, Being Human doesn't appear to be available on DVD in North America, which limits its availability to a good chunk of the game... but poke one of us, and we might be able to help you.
ETA: And apparently BBC America is starting Being Human on the 25th. So now you really don't have an excuse not to watch it! ... ... Unless you dont' have BBCA.
And remember... "When in Rome, stop killing the other Romans." --Mitchell
[Written with chosehumanity, who, truth told, probably did more of the work. ;) ♥]
Being Human is a series by BBC3 that chronicles the (mis)adventures of Mitchell (a vampire), George (a werewolf), and Annie (a ghost) after Mitchell and George move into the flat already occupied by Annie. It started out as one of a series of pilots aired in the late winter/early spring of 2008 as part of an attempt at rebranding the channel; two of these pilots were eventually commissioned for full series, and of those two only Being Human was actually produced. The six episodes of the first series aired from January through March of 2009.
The pilot is of questionable canonicity, considering that afterwards, the producers decided to both retool the mood of the show from 'goth' to 'slice of life' and replace four of the lead actors - Mitchell, Annie, Lauren and Herrick - before the actual series started, but it chronicles the start of our set-up. Mitchell and George decide to move in together to help combat loneliness and find an 'in' with humanity. Mitchell breaks with the vampires of Bristol (interrupting one of Herrick's meetings to give them shit about their 'humans kicked us out of society' routine - according to him, it's bullshit, because the vampires butchered their way out) but not before killing and turning a beautiful girl called Lauren.
Happy to take to a new life, George still finds his newfound peace disturbed as a third housemate makes their presence known: Annie, a sad girl ghost who keeps to the house after chasing all of the other would-be tenants out. George isn't too charmed by her, but Mitchell convinces him to give her a chance.
And so, our band of merry misfits falls into a crazy rollercoaster of daily human life, vampire intrigue, werewolf self-loathing and one ghost's quest to reconcile herself with her death.
Characters
"There is a question you haven't asked yourself yet. If I exist what else does? You think you're the big bad wolf, you should see George on a full moon. You think you're a cold-blooded murderer? Mitchell was killing 80 years before you were even born. Don't you get it yet? I'm just the tip of the iceberg, I'm good cop. Look at you, so pleased with your grubby little murder, fact is when it comes to pure naked evil, you're an amateur. I want you to know you wandered off the path. This is where the wild things are." -- Annie
George Sands
"We're like the world's gayest ninjas." -- George
George Sands is your average twenty-something genius working a menial job for shit pay. ... Or, well. There's also the part where George is a werewolf.
Roughly a year before the start of the series, George Sands was vacationing in Scotland when he went for a walk with an American tourist, not long before nightfall. Which was a mistake -- it was, you see, the full moon, and there was a werewolf on the loose. With his throat and chest torn out, the American tourist got off lucky; George, having suffered only some scratches on his left shoulder, became a werewolf himself. He left home and ran away pretty much immediately after discovering this, on the next full moon, and was working in a cafe -- and living above it -- when he was attacked by a gang of vampires and saved by Mitchell, who took him under his wing and offered him friendship, as best he could.
With a stated IQ of 156, George is smart, and as it seems to follow for those with such intelligence, he is more than a little socially awkward; he's aware of this, though, and aware of how things 'tend to go'. When he sees his ex-girlfriend -- who he left behind along with his family when he ran away -- in the hospital where he works as a porter, George reveals that -- regardless what she thought -- he never believed that they would have lasted, because he felt she would eventually come to realise that he just wasn't good enough for her. This lack of self-confidence is apparent throughout a lot of the series.
The most important part about George's character arc, over the course of the series, is his struggle with 'being human' -- of fighting back the monster inside of him, his 'curse' of being a werewolf, and rejoining humanity. He hates the fact that part of him loves the change, loves what happens to him before and after, and the power it gives him scares him so very much. Above all, George wants to be 'normal' -- which, really, I suspect is something he longed for before he was turned into a werewolf.
Also, George provides most of the best humour of the series. Because who could forget lines such as, "We're like the world's gayest ninjas" (see above!), or, "Who wants some of my chair?"
Oh, George.
John Mitchell
"Where do I belong? Where do I fit? Who are my people? Where do my loyalties lie? We all choose our tribe. It's that need to belong, to live within boundaries, cause it's scary on the outside, on the fringes. Some labels are forced on us. They mock us, set us apart 'til we're like ghosts, drifting through other people's lives. But only if we let the labels hold. You can piss your whole life away trying out who you might be. It's when you've worked out who you are that you can really start to live." -- Mitchell
Back in 1915, a young soldier encounters a pack of human predators somewhere in the woods during World War I. He gives an offer: spare the lives of his men, and they can have his, as a vampire, no questions asked. The vampires agree - possibly because of Herrick's building obsession with him. A day later, Mitchell awakes in a pile of dead bodies, bewildered, and smelling of death.
That wasn't how he'd expected to die.
Cue nearly a hundred years later, and a hipster named Mitchell moves into one house with his best friend George... and that's where our story truly begins.
Mitchell has a strong moral center, and it's perhaps this that drove him to commit the atrocities that he did. He's a complete idealist at heart despite all of his experiences, hoping beyond hope that one cause or another (humanity, then the vampire effort to take over the country) will lead to a happy, utopian existence, free of the cruelty that both horrifies and fascinates him. To the vampires, he is a rockstar, whose murders rise far above their more pedestrian ones. Seth goes as far as to point out at one point that 'the best stories are about [Mitchell]', and these stories keep popping up amidst the vampires in the series ("And then Mitchell rang the doorbell, still holding the corpse, and the man opened the door-- and Mitchell says, 'Tomb service!'."). It's also implied that back in his younger days he had ties to the movie industry (to the point where he could pull a role as an extra in 'Casablanca' despite not being able to show up on camera) and probably had a lot of fun with the rise of the 60s.
But in the pilot, Mitchell decides to change - although he's been disgusted by the life for quite some time already. He's met George and been friends for a while now, and it 'feels like the time' to make a change. This sets up the 'addict in rehab' theme that follows him throughout the first series. He's quiet, and he's charming, albeit a lot of it is left-over predator instinct. He very much seems to want to be the big brother, but his fight against his addiction makes it occasionally difficult, and he defaults too easily to his vampire habits when people wind up leaving him - turning friends to 'save their lives'.
Well, that, and the fact that he has occasionally very unorthodox ideas about how he should behave in order to be a part of humanity. Ahem.
To summarise, the cast describes Mitchell as 'cool' and 'complicated', and that covers him well.
Annie Sawyer
"Not anymore. I am darkness. I'm death, vengeance and fury, fire and blood. Diamonds and bones. Sapphire! And... er... Steel." --Annie
Annie has been haunting the house for quite some time now. She always wanted an ordinary life, to die at an old age with grandkids milling about - instead she died in her early twenties, alone on the tiles of her new home. Her state as a ghost - unable to be seen by anyone but the undead - stands as a metaphor for the way she retreated from society herself, shy, unable to speak up for herself, unseen. But now surroudned by friends who can see her, she begins to blossom, slowly but surely, back into her full potential. When she finally finds her confidence at the end of the first series, she's radiant and powerful like a goddess, by far the strongest of the trio.
Annie is very much her own, dorky woman. She makes tea as a nervous tick (leading George to, at one point, complain that he couldn't make any tea - "All the tea's already been made!") and has some trouble spelling (in the middle of a dramatic scene over her own grave, she pauses to remark, 'Are there two e's in fiancee?') and brings a cheerful, oddball streetwise common sense to the house ('Maybe he got hit in the head. My uncle got hit in the head by a radio-controlled plane, once. From then on? Obsessed with pygmy goats.').
Her big issue is her ex-fiance, Owen, who still owns the house and landlords it with her eternal nemesis (and his new girlfriend), the 'orange pleb' Janey Harris. They left a lot of things unfinished, and those things spring up again in surprising ways across the six episodes that make up the first series. Annie finds her power in stepping away from him, in becoming her own self, in making friends and not lovers and finally glueing a very unorthodox family together.
Basically, Annie is made of love and sweet things and awesome pie, occasionally obnoxious, but never annoying. She could badger Gilbert the 80s Goth out of his funk - nobody else can stand up against that much joy.
Or, on one particular occasion, that chair.
Supporting Characters
Herrick
"My god, [Mitchell] and [Herrick] are like obsessed with each other. It is totally. Gay." -- Lauren
Herrick is, to put it lightly, a vampire supremacist. He's by far the oldest of the vampires we've met in Being Human so far, of indeterminate age. He sired Mitchell, who remains his favorite - down to obsession, as the Lauren quote shows. He's described by the cast to have 'classic short man syndrome', like a vampire Napoleon; in the bowels of Bristol, he broods on plans to take over the country, and the world when he's done.
Herrick shows up to tempt Mitchell back into the vampire lifestyle to the best of his ability, sometimes with results. His following has grown to great sizes among the other vampires, and his reach in terms of both manipulation and cover-ups is grand. He works as a policeman, using his job as a very succesful cover for everything else he does. Most people think he's a charming, unoffensive man who doesn't really stick out. Most people are wrong.
In the end, Herrick has made only one, vital mistake. He went after Mitchell.
And that gets George's attention. Dun dun dun duuun.
Seth
Annie: I'm a ghost actually.
Seth: Get out! Can you like move things about and walk from one room to another?
George: Yeah, I'm pretty sure everyone can do that.
Seth: Shut it, Digby! The only reason why I haven't torn your bastard face off yet is because I've just done the hoovering in here.
Seth is the dictionary definition of 'flunkie'. Really. Look it up in the dictionary, you'll find a picture of him. He's been Herrick's dogsbody for decades, even since before Mitchell joined them. He regards Mitchell with both envy and admiration for his 'golden boy' status. He's also a complete idiot who makes a habit out of cocking up assignments and staring at girl's breasts when they talk to him, but at least Herrick keeps him firmly in line.
Josie
George: My thing is a part time thing.
Josie: Oh right, I thought perhaps you were a wizard or something.
George: A wizard? That's ridiculous.
Josie: Trust me, once you've dated a vampire you tend to have a different criteria for what's ridiculous.
Mitchell's ex-girlfriend from the 60s, she turned back up in his life after losing her husband and being diagnosed with cancer. She still feels real affection for him, but finds herself concerned when it turns out he's bought into the vampires' new Utopian plan. In the end, she tracks down George to help save Mitchell before it's too late. Josie is strong and no-nonsense, and she and Mitchell have obviously never lost a fondness for each other. For him, however, she also marks the passing of time - something he'd like to stop.
Lauren
Lauren: And the blood Mitchell. Can you remember the taste? So rich and warm. You can have it again. As much as you want.
Mitchell: I can't, the cost is too high.
Lauren: Please! Who are you saving, really? Have you seen Britain's Got Talent?
Right at the start of the series, Mitchell gives in to his urges and wines, dines, and bites a twenty-year-old girl called Lauren. Afterwards, still sitting by the bed he murdered in, he makes his decision to stop once and for all and flees the apartment.
For Mitchell, this is all well and good, and a good step on the way to recovery.
For Lauren, it's the start of a nightmare, as the vampires take to her like she's an orphan they have been forced to deal with. She develops a quick obsession with Mitchell, stalking him in the hopes that he'll help her (Mitchell, it seems, is like stalker-vampire-bait). She and Mitchell eventually resume having a relationship, as a kind of disturbing funhouse mirror image of lovers. Despite her brash attitude, however, the vampire life is taking far more of a toll on her than she admits, and she's perhaps Mitchell's finest lesson in self-control across the board.
Bernie
Bernie: I could have taken them!
Mitchell: Well, I couldn't at your age.
Bernie is a young teenage boy who Mitchell befriends and takes under his wing after witnessing him being bullied. Mitchell, always happy to play the big brother role, is actually settled by Bernie's presence and begins to regain a few more upbeat notions about life, especially when he finds he doesn't feel the urge to kill around Bernie at all. Unfortunately, that all comes crashing to an end as Bernie unwittingly borrows the wrong DVD from Mitchell's, and his mother catches him watching vampire porn.
This kicks off a witch hunt that ends in Bernie being killed, and pushes Mitchell over the brink and back into rejoining the vampires, disgusted with humanity.
Tully
George: How did you find me?
Tully: You're a werewolf living in Bristol. It kinda narrows the field.
Tully first appears briefly in the first episode -- not the pilot, the first episode of the actual series -- and then features heavily in the second; he's a werewolf, like George, and he decides to teach George what it means to be one. There are lessons in wooing women -- which go horribly -- and George, in many ways, becomes Tully's mini-me.
And then George finds out the secret that Tully was keeping from him, which I'm not going to spoil for you, but trust me -- it's big.
Owen
"Hey, Annie! That the best you got?" -- Owen
Owen owns the building rented by George and Mitchell -- and is, in fact, Annie's ex-fiance. He starts off seeming more-or-less your average bloke, but over the series we learn more about him and his relationship with Annie... and the circumstances that led up to Annie's death.
Since Annie's death, he's started dating the ever-orange Janey Harris, who works in a tanning salon and 'actually thinks [that particular orange shade of skin] looks good'.
Gilbert
"Fun is such a bourgeois concept." -- Gilbert
Gilbert, the friendly ghost. He died in the 1980s of unknown causes, and has stuck around because of some unfinished business he actually isn't that fussed by. He's the quintessential 80s hipster, interested only in navel-gazing, sombre music and giving cops the finger. His ideas about fun are... unorthodox, but in the end, he becomes close with Annie, who helps him resolve his death.
Nina
"Saying 'it's not you, it's me' is a stabbable offence in my book and I can easily get my hands on scalpels." -- Nina
Nina is a senior staff nurse at the same hospital where Mitchell and George work, and she is sharp of both tongue and wit. In fact, her first encounter with George has her berating him for following the orders of a doctor in bringing a patient up from A&E; she is also the victim of Tully's advice to George on dating, and she thinks him an arrogant twat because of it.
Of course, when she finds George spending his day off to visit the same patient he'd earlier brought into his ward, because she has no family in the area, Nina starts to readjust her opinion of him, and the two start what's guaranteed to be an eventful relationship.
Why Should I Watch It?
George: I'm Jewish and [Mitchell]'s complicated.
Mark: Jewish people pray, I've seen Yentl.
George: You're very sarcastic for a vicar.
Mark: Yeah, so people tell me, and I feel very bad about it then I forgive myself.
Because it is made of win. No, seriously.
Okay, in more detail? It's a tightly-plotted, tightly-written, and tightly-acted show. It has its flaws! ... I'm sure it has flaws. I just can't think of any at the moment.
If you like shows that examine the human condition and ask, "Who's the monster, really?"; if you like shows that show the dark and the humourous, often at the same time; of you like shows that are just plain fantastic: this is the show for you. Being Human also has what is quite possibly the best example of 'the family you find' that we've seen. Ever.
Then there's the amazing soundtrack! Starting with the theme all the way down to the choices of appropriate 80s music in the Gilbert episodes, the music (put on deliberately by a character in the series to 'mask the noise') when we first witness George's transformation (NWS), and beyond, this show has one of the most amazing soundtracks I've ever heard.
It's only six episodes. It rocks. Watch it!
Where to Find It
"I'm not eating raw meat like an animal just because a ghost is ovulating!" --George
Unfortunately, Being Human doesn't appear to be available on DVD in North America, which limits its availability to a good chunk of the game... but poke one of us, and we might be able to help you.
ETA: And apparently BBC America is starting Being Human on the 25th. So now you really don't have an excuse not to watch it! ... ... Unless you dont' have BBCA.
And remember... "When in Rome, stop killing the other Romans." --Mitchell
[Written with chosehumanity, who, truth told, probably did more of the work. ;) ♥]