WRITER: Lisa McGee[SPOILERS] Most of the episodes not written by creator Toby Whithouse have felt like this sixth installment; sporadically excellent, sometimes sluggish, but mostly solid entertainment that gets the job done and leaves you contented. I'm just a little frustrated Being Human feels like it has too many episodes to ensure each episode feels full of pertinent goings-on, yet paradoxically too few to make sure all the storylines feel credibly-paced. It means that Annie (Lenora Crichlow) has been stuck in different weekly adventures mid-series, and George's (Russell Tovey) relationship with Sam (Lucy Gaskell) even forces the characters to comment on how preposterously quick it's developed. The only storyline that's unfolded in a satisfying way -- well, with a few caveats -- is Mitchell's (Aidan Turner) management of the city's vampires and romance with duplicitous Dr. Lucy (Lindsey Marshal)...
DIRECTOR: Charles Martin
GUEST CAST: Lyndsey Marshal, Donald Sumpter, Paul Rhys, Mark Fleischmann, Matt Barber, Lucy Gaskell, Simon Paisley Day, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Molly Jones, Morgan Jones, Sally Ann Matthews & Jacquetta May
We begin with another prologue, this one set in London 1972, that explains why the cadaverous Kemp (Donald Sumpter) is hell-bent on eradicating supernatural beings, but vampires in particular. It turns out that he was (still is?) a man of the cloth, who arrived home one night to disrupt his wife being preyed on by a trio of vampires as his young daughter watched on in horror, before scaring them off using his trusty Bible in Peter Cushing mode. This opening got me hopeful we might get a whole episode told from the perspective of Kemp from '72 onwards, but this was unfortunately just a scrap of mytharc thrown our way as an appetizer.
Still, it reinforced the devour religious angle to Kemp's understandable prejudice and helped make him more sympathetic than he's been so far -- but is that a good thing? It primarily left me wondering what happened to his daughter? Could she be a character we've seen before? Does anyone fit the bill?
To the episode proper, George decided to rent a house with Sam and Molly (Molly Jones), but once the hard reality of this hit home he began to feel a little overwhelmed by the commitment and started to lie in an effort to escape his situation, later embarrassed to realize that little Molly's seen right through him and would prefer he break her mum's heart sooner rather than later. I always appreciate good performances from child actors, and Molly Jones was very good here as the precocious daughter. It's also been fun seeing George in a new relationship, if a little hard to invest in this romance because it's felt so rushed and, let's be honest, the likelihood of a George/Nina reunion in the finale has always felt inevitable, which has undermined how much you can really invest in George/Sam as anything other than a fun distraction.
More time was actually devoted to Annie's storyline this week, even if it was ultimately another self-contained adventure for the ghostly altruist. Here, she stumbled upon a live show from psychic medium Alan Cortez (Simon Paisley Day), a lapsed psychic who lost his sixth sense after falling off stage and is now putting on a toe-curling act where his audience essentially provide their own answers. Annie comes to realize from a dead usher called Robin (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) that the theatre's actually packed with dead people, too, who watch Cortez's shows from a TV upstairs, but have been unable to communicate with him since his accident.
Fortunately, for reasons left a little vague, Annie's apparently "confident" enough to make her presence known to Cortez and agrees to become his literal spirit guide and pass on messages from "the other side". It's not long before Cortex's show is back to being a success (if not a sellout), but Annie's dealt an emotional blow when she notices her grieving mother Carmen (Jacquetta May) in the audience one day, and realizes her mum blames herself for not noticing she was in a violent relationship that resulted in her death.
Annie's story was far more entertaining than recent attempts to give her character something to do, despite the fact there were moments that just didn't sit right. I'm still half-irritated by how Annie's played in a rather juvenile way by Crichlow (sometimes charming, usually irritating), and how most storylines Annie's given involves her trying to play the Good Samaritan. Still, it was a fun idea to involve a tacky psychic medium, amusing in a Beetlejuice-style to see ghosts all dressed in the often bizarre clothes/uniforms they died in (a wetsuit, bondage gear), and the unexpected emotional heft of Annie meeting her mother was great -- mainly thanks to Jacquetta May's touching, tender performance.
Finally, Mitchell and Lucy's relationship moved a step forward, with Mitchell agreeing to abdicate from his "throne" as vampire head to be with Lucy, as Lucy herself grappled with her feelings for him in secret. On the one hand she likes Mitchell and believes he's genuinely trying to change his ways (and that of other vampires), but on the other hand she's persistently reminded by mentor Kemp that vampires are liars made in the Devil's image and can't be trusted. There wasn't much else going on in this subplot, but it built to an effective climax -- after Lucy had manipulated Mitchell into calling a meeting of the city's vampires at the funeral parlour, where Kemp's henchman had planted a bomb that later exploded and has apparently killed those insides. Of course, my guess is that Mitchell and Ivan (Paul Rhys) will have survived the bombing.
Overall, episode 6 was definitely better than last week's lull, even if none of its storylines really gripped you when viewed individually. It was just a pleasant hour with enough memorable moments for you to reflect on it kindly, while setting up what should be exciting final two episodes, with creator Toby Whithouse back to guide series 2 home.
Asides
-- Is Ivan dead? Can vampires be killed in explosions? Was the blood loss great enough?
-- Is Molly psychic? She seems to intuitively know something's up with George and is now having nightmares about him.
14 FEBRUARY 2010: BBC3, 9PM / BBC HD, 10PM
