Suddenly I See
Hello strangers. Last night I sat down and watched the final installment of series 2 of the marvellous Being Human. I assume you watch it – although if for some uncomprehensible reason, you do not, I can only recommend the DVD boxset when it is released. In fact, get that anyway. It is a masterly production, with some great SFX when called for, engaging multi-dimensional characters and a cracking script. I do love the way the dialogue just throws out a few curve balls from time to time. For example, in yesterday’s episode, in the middle of a heated argument that was quite literally a matter of life of death, Mitchell points to Nina and refers to her as “Inch High Private Eye”… I nearly fell of my chair such was the level of the guffaw. And earlier in the series when Mitchell and George reflected their rage and despair respectively by their reaction to BBC3 re-scheduling The Real Hustle. The script just makes the entire series a joy to watch.
Looking splendid in glorious HD, these 8 episodes of BH have continued to explore some interesting areas, most notably this time around we saw the religeous aspect of the church’s reaction (or, at least, some peculiar little evangelical offshoot of Christianity) to the existence of such “monsters”. Led by the sinister Kemp, played deliciously by Donald Sumpter, and his technical assistant, this cult superficially sought to help the world by ridding it of the Type 1’s “Vampires”, Type 2’s “Ghosts” and Type 3’s “Werewolves” and this element of the storyline was a constant throughout. Many of the episodes began with a flashback sequence where some incident in the past either influences or mirrors the present day. Having known that a third series was commissioned and that production was being relocated to Wales, the series also built (as did series one) to a conclusion that opened up some interesting possibilities for new stories.
From a character point of view, I quite enjoyed seeing Annie struggling to come to terms with her death and her wildly varying reactions to it: this season we saw her get a job, learn how to resist being drawn through the doors that appear to take people to the other side, meet her mother, before finally succumbing to “death”. Although quite what that means remains to be seen as there appear to be a good supply of TV cameras on the other side to enable communication back to the land of the living. George’s year was a little less interesting, although this was more than made up for by Russell Tovey’s sympathetic portrayal. I am glad that he and Nina seem to be back together. Mitchell has possibly been the most interesting this series following the death of Herrick last year. He was forced in to a leadership position among the vampires that he didn’t seem to want and was, if truth is told, pretty hopeless at it anyway. His endeavours to integrate the vampires quietly in to society while they were all going cold turkey was never going to work, although the hell that kicked off after the mass murder of these undead at the hands of Mitchell’s new girlfriend, Lucy, was a genuine series highlight.
