Being Human

[usuallyhats]

Watched Being Human the other night courtesy of iplayer - it was good but not perfect.


The very beginning annoyed me - look, it's a female character who wants to have sex, how long do we think she'll last? Plus, Mitchell kills her and it's all about his emo manpain and not about her deadpain. That made sense in my head, ok?

But then there were lovely shots of lovely Bristol and I was made a bit happy again. Also the interaction between Mitchell and the werewolf, whose name I forget but who will henceforth be known as Rudge, as that is who he was in the History Boys, until such time as I remember his name or someone tells me what it was. Um, where was I? Oh yes. The montage of Mitchell and Rudge in the flat was muchly fun, yes.

And then there was Annie, who I love - funny and snarky and real, I was so glad when she came through for Rudge at the end, and her conversation on the steps with yer woman (I am bad at names, ok) was brill.

Basically, I loved the snark and the flatmatey bits but was meh on the angst and the set up for the oncoming plot, which was a bit seen it all before. Also, having the Villainous Vampires be the black man and the woman whereas the Sympathetic Vampire is the angsty white man? Boring and vaguely offensive! Though I did like Mitchell.

Overall I hope it gets picked up - it had potential and more importantly snark.

Comments

[ghostpaw.livejournal.com]

The werewolf was called George, the ghost is Annie. The name of George's ex escapes me right now, but yes, that scene was cool.

I know what you mean about the vampire-imperialism plot being all a bit here we go again. Reminded me of Ultraviolet for some weird reason.

I'm now mildly perturbed that I missed the horrendous political non-correctness. I think I've got a bit used to suspending expectations on that front. That and I was too busy spotting my neighbourhood.

I hope it gets picked up too, definite potential.

[usuallyhats]

George! Yes. Thank you!

Reminded me of Ultraviolet for some weird reason.

Ah, yes, me too, now you come to mention it - that's what I was thinking of.

Recent whofandom kerfuffles have made me extra sensitive to political non-correctness! It annoys me most in things like this that are otherwise quite good.

[ghostpaw.livejournal.com]

Recent whofandom kerfuffles? I'm curious now. I mean, appart from the obvious thing that the resident demi-god is a Caucasian male, I didn't think Whoniverse was all that bad.

I dunno, I'm all for challenging stereotypes, but OTOH the way Herrick was writen, the character could have been any race or gender (well, ok, probably male), maybe Adrian Lester just played it best.

FYI, George's ex is Julia, chief-baddy vampire is Herrick, and Mitchell's accidental childe is Lauren.

[usuallyhats]

Well, there was this essay which suggested that there was something a bit dodgy in how both black companions are treated as second best - things got a bit ugly in the comments and have been getting ugly again every now and then ever since. Tis a bit of a worrying pattern that non-white whoniverse characters tend to end up pining over white characters who are more interested in other white characters, yes.

I agree with your point about Herrick (ah, that's who Adrian Lester is! I had been wondering), though, and Being Human hasn't really had long enough for me to judge it properly.

[ghostpaw.livejournal.com]

Yeah, ok, I take it back. Said essay is totally right. And unfortunatly, the casting of Adrian Lester as the baddy probably does have undertones, even if not concious ones on the producers behalf, 'cus basically people are stupid.