Being Human (for Yankees)

I should preface this by putting it out there that I haven’t seen the original BBC version of Being Human. Not one second of it. So while my thoughts on the Syfy adaptation of the show will lack insight into how it compares to the original, there will also be a lack of whining about how one version or the other is clearly superior/inferior. With that out of the way, I thought the debut of Syfy’s Being Human was pretty solid and one of the better new shows I’ve seen so far this midseason.

For those who don’t know, Being Human tells the tale of Aidan (Sam Witwer), Josh (Sam Huntington) and Sally (Meaghan Rath) – a vampire, werewolf and ghost, respectively. They’re roommates and are trying to live relatively normal lives, despite being supernatural creatures. I figured I’d check it out because I’ve been jonesing for something new to latch on to and I’m usually willing to give new shows a chance or two.

After soldiering through the opening voice over (which in general I find to be hit or miss – worked for Veronica Mars; Heroes, not so much), I soon found myself engaged in Being Human’s world. This would probably be due to the show diving right into the thick of things – no origin stories, no time in the normal world.  The supernatural is not a novel or foreign concept to TV viewers anymore and there doesn’t need to be a lot of setup or time spent being wowed about vampires, werewolves and ghosts. So I appreciated that we joined the protagonists after they had gotten over the shock of whatever led them to no longer being what they had been.

About halfway through the series premier I was definitely getting a vibe from Being Human much like that of the CW’s Supernatural. The drama and humor mixed nicely, with the show seemingly able to switch fairly easily from one to the other. And overall the show seemed to have above average production values – something that can’t be said of every Syfy show. After checking out some of the crew on imdb, the vibe makes a lot of sense – some of the writers’ previous credits include Supernatural and Reaper, as well as Doctor Who and the original Being Human. So if nothing else, the Yankee version of Being Human has a solid pedigree.

I found the acting on the show to be pretty good as well – nothing spectacular, but nothing underwhelming. Some other reviews seem to have singled out Rath’s character as the weak link, but having only seen one episode (one half of the premier) it’s too soon for me to say. I definitely feel Witwer and Huntington worked better, but that could just be a result of them having way more screen time than Rath and thus more time for the viewer to get used to them. It was very easy to buy the two male leads as pretty good friends trying to watch out for each other. Special props to Huntington for mastering the ‘oh crap’ look in a vital scene toward the end of the episode that put a knot in my stomach.

Also – Mark Pellegrino. That guy seems to be ubiquitous, showing up on some of my favorite shows over the past several years: Lost, Dexter and Supernatural. He plays a vampire looking to get Aidan back into the fold and totally nails the bad guy role. Pellegrino does creepy well, but he’s not over the top, and he adds enough humanity and emotion to make him believable as someone who’s up to no good, but still cares about the protagonist.

I don’t know where Being Human is going (another perk of having not seen the original), but it’s a show I’ll be following for the season. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely, but I don’t think its faults are deal breakers and it’s a much more well-rounded show so far than many other of the new midseason offerings. Maybe it’s not for everyone, but it certainly handles vampires and werewolves better than certain book/film franchises that shall not be named.

A quick final note – if you’re thinking of checking out Being Human, avoid the end of show preview (something I need to start doing for all shows). The preview I saw completely gave away some major plot points that had been left up in the air by the premiere.  Thanks for that Syfy…

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:

• Like what you hear?  Parts 1 and 2 of Syfy’s Being Human premiere are streaming here, at syfy.com!
• Images (c)2010, Syfy.

Toben Shelby is a freelance writer at times. He co-hosts and produces Spoiler Alert, a radio show that discusses movies, games, TV, comics and more. It streams live online most Thursday nights on http://kruaradio.org from 8-10 p.m. PST. He also usually writes stuff like this late at night and hopes you excuse any lack of flow or proper sentence structure…twitter.com/spoileralertak

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