It appears Herrick's demise has caused nothing but problems for George, who has become a notorious hate-figure amongst Bristol's vampire population. In opening scenes, he's tormented by two vampires fresh back from their globetrotting adventures together -- ice-cool Ivan (Paul Rhys) and lusty inamorata Daisy (Amy Manson) -- the latter of whom seems oddly attracted to George, in an apparent attempt to lure him into bad behaviour. Affable George finds himself tempted by licentious Daisy, too, partly because his relationship with kindhearted nurse Nina (Sinead Keenan) has hit the rocks of late...
Unbeknownst to George, the reason for Nina's baffling change in temperament is because she fears he's cursed her with lycanthropy after accidentally scratching her forearm. After confiding in Annie about her situation, Nina makes arrangements to undergo her first metamorphosis, and resolves to keep everything a secret from her boyfriend, who'd be heartbroken by the guilt. This subplot definitely inspired the best performances of the premiere, with Tovey and Keenan both tremendous in making George and Nina's arguments feel authentic and devastatingly emotional. The allegory appears to be that of a HIV-positive boyfriend accidentally passing on his condition to his lover, which is hardly an original idea, but still a great way for Being Human to keep a core of realism.
Elsewhere, the new series antagonist was revealed: an elderly, saturnine man known as Kemp (Donald Sumpter), who clearly knows supernatural beings exist and appears to be experimenting on the few he captures. I daresay he wants to exterminate the lot. In this episode's most memorable sequence, we see that Kemp has entrapped a werewolf and is attempting to prevent the man's transformation: negating the responsible "tidal influence" of the Full Moon by placing him inside a pressurized chamber. The test proves successful, but that doesn't stop Kemp from increasing the pressure to rupture the poor man's blood vessels and let him bleed out in agony.
By far the weakest subplot involved Annie's job search, which eventually resulted in her getting bar work at a local pub. I remain largely unconvinced by much of Annie's role in this show, hate to say. Crichlow's performance is so bubbly and jovial that it feels incongruous to the tone of the series, and while it would seem a great idea to give us some light with the shade (God knows this episode needed more laughs), I'm not a fan of how Annie's written as "comic relief." Her funny job interview and first customer scenes left me cold.
On a geekier level, I'm disappointed Annie now has a physical presence, as there doesn't appear to be many ways to discern her from a normal person now. I understand that story options are limited when you're dealing with a traditional ghost who can't be seen by normal people, but I'm not sure making Annie corporeal is the way to go. I mean, quite why the neighbours don't realize the young girl who died a year ago is now back alive and pulling pints down the local is a puzzle to me. And where's the fun if you can't have a ghost walk through the occasional wall or make things "levitate"? I appreciate the attempt to do something different, but would you ever de-fang a vampire?
A little better was the suggestion of romance for Mitchell, who forms a connection with an initially prickly doctor called Lucy (Lindsey Marshal) at the hospital, while trying to clean the unisex toilet she was occupying. Nothing much comes of this story here, beyond Mitchell buying her a goldfish to replace her dead one as a peace offering, but we'll see how things develop. I just hope it isn't a Mitchell-centric retread of George's own workplace romance last year, which it definitely has similarities too. It would be far more interesting if Lucy is a honey-trap, perhaps installed by Kemp's team so they can bag themselves a vampire for experimentation.
So yes, I wasn't blown away by Being Human's return, but it definitely didn't waste much time introducing new characters and new ideas for the rest of the series to expand upon. And I'm still impressed by how well the special-effects crew accomplish the show's werewolf transformations, which are enjoyably gruesome and painful-looking. The end-result may still be a man in a fur suit wearing a rubber Alsatian's head (oh, how I bet they wish they'd gone down the Wolf Man route, and not down the American Werewolf In London path), but success ultimately comes from how much the camera shows.
Speaking of which, Colin Teague's direction was surprisingly poor. The first fifteen-minutes, dominated by George and Mitchell's chase around a multi-storey car park, was pretty weak and lacked a sense of orientation. And there were quite a few other scenes with strange camera positions and needless artistic flourishes (like the crane-camera moving skyward from Mitchell after the scene when his housemates handed out tea and coffee to evacuated neighbours.) That kind of thing wasn't needed to put a stamp on the scene's intentions, and just called attention to itself. Perhaps a slight increase in budget this year persuaded Teague to have some fun with his equipment.
On another technical point, the sound mix was noticeably aggressive, with music often swallowing the dialogue. I watched the BBC Three transmission (with surround sound), so maybe the sound was better on BBC HD an hour later (is it broadcast in DD5.1 there?), but I personally thought the music was too aggressive throughout and many lines were rendered unintelligible.
Overall, I have enough confidence in Toby Whithouse to put aside my issues for now. I enjoyed series 1, and this episode introduced enough fresh intrigue to keep me hooked. The performances were excellent from Tovey and Keenan, and I'm already excited about the possibilities with Ivan, Daisy and Kemp. I just wish Annie interested me, that Mitchell's nascent romance didn't feel so similar to George's already, and that this episode had been much funnier. For a comedy-drama, there was precious little to laugh at here, which was a pity.
In fact, about halfway through, the episode was proving to be quite a downer and didn't really recover. Series 1 had its fair share of emotional, violent and grisly moments, too, but there was always the core friendships and amusing dialogue to help release the pressure. There were a few good lines that caused a giggle here ("you might be able to tear someone's throat out, but God forbid anyone should see your winky"), but there wasn't a good balance. It was all fairly oppressive. Hopefully Being Human isn't going to go too serious on us.
10 January 2010
BBC Three, 9.30pm / BBC HD, 10.30pm
written by: Toby Whithouse directed by: Colin Teague starring: Russell Tovey (George), Aidan Turner (Mitchell), Lenora Crichlow (Annie), Sinead Keenan (Nina), Donald Sumpter (Kemp), Paul Rhys (Ivan), Amy Manson (Daisy), Lindsey Marshal (Lucy), Mark Fleishman (Technician), Joel Gilman (Galvin), Alex Lanipekan (Saul), Adrian Schiller (Hennessey), Nathan Wright (Hugh) & Margaret John (Old Lady)
