Being Human....
Ugh. The wife and I just watched 1x01 of the 6 episode series for Being Human (yes we are sometimes the kind dorks who may enjoy watching simultaneously and messaging our exclamations). And we were rather less than impressed.
Last year, BBC aired a 1 hour prospective pilot, written by Toby Whithouse (who has written on Torchwood, Dr. Who, and Hotel Babylon) and I was all aflutter for it as the best new thing (I believe I pimped it on here). Great characters (with great chemistry), great dialog and monologues on death and evil, etc. There is a lot of comedy to be had in a slothful vampire and a hyperactive werewolf moving into a flat that has a ghost.
From an interview with Whithouse, the original concept for the odd couple flatshare had been a recovering sex addict and an OCD homebody, and it was to be more of a sitcom. While these original ideas, and the emphasis on comedy, definitely informed the original, they seem to have been rather laid to the wayside with the subsequent version.
Per a Q&A summary (I can't view the clips from this side of the pond), they decided to lessen the camp/comedy and, in the interest of avoiding typical genre cliches, they decided to rework the characters as much more normal and grounded, specifically making the ghost less quirky and the vampire less skinny goth boy. (They also took away a lot of the dark-side edge to the werewolf character, which was not a good move either as now it feels unbalanced. And there was no more talk of his being Jewish, but that may return - we hope.)
This new version has been completely recast except for two of the characters - the werewolf and one of the 'other' vampire characters (and in my opinion all of the replacements were a step down) and has neither the awesome chemistry between the two leads nor really any good lines whatsoever. It's amazing what losing actor chemistry can do to a show, and apparently moving the writing from being more-or-less the singular product of creator/EP Whithouse to the writer's room impeded the ability to actually produce quality writing.
Per the UK press, apparently my views are definitely in the minority - the series, thus far, is getting rave reviews across the pond.
Though, considering the other new genre show it's up against (Demons), the rave reviews start to make a bit more sense.
Last year, BBC aired a 1 hour prospective pilot, written by Toby Whithouse (who has written on Torchwood, Dr. Who, and Hotel Babylon) and I was all aflutter for it as the best new thing (I believe I pimped it on here). Great characters (with great chemistry), great dialog and monologues on death and evil, etc. There is a lot of comedy to be had in a slothful vampire and a hyperactive werewolf moving into a flat that has a ghost.
From an interview with Whithouse, the original concept for the odd couple flatshare had been a recovering sex addict and an OCD homebody, and it was to be more of a sitcom. While these original ideas, and the emphasis on comedy, definitely informed the original, they seem to have been rather laid to the wayside with the subsequent version.
Per a Q&A summary (I can't view the clips from this side of the pond), they decided to lessen the camp/comedy and, in the interest of avoiding typical genre cliches, they decided to rework the characters as much more normal and grounded, specifically making the ghost less quirky and the vampire less skinny goth boy. (They also took away a lot of the dark-side edge to the werewolf character, which was not a good move either as now it feels unbalanced. And there was no more talk of his being Jewish, but that may return - we hope.)
This new version has been completely recast except for two of the characters - the werewolf and one of the 'other' vampire characters (and in my opinion all of the replacements were a step down) and has neither the awesome chemistry between the two leads nor really any good lines whatsoever. It's amazing what losing actor chemistry can do to a show, and apparently moving the writing from being more-or-less the singular product of creator/EP Whithouse to the writer's room impeded the ability to actually produce quality writing.
Per the UK press, apparently my views are definitely in the minority - the series, thus far, is getting rave reviews across the pond.
Though, considering the other new genre show it's up against (Demons), the rave reviews start to make a bit more sense.