S P O I L E R S

BBCHD - 13 March 2011 - 10.00pm

"Rule 1 of Vampire Club. Do not get arrested."

"It's clearly dress-down-Friday."

"C'mon! Me and the boys wanted a fight. There's popcorn! And at half-time I was going to have an Nespresso!"

"Grief and revenge are not things to get drunk on. You wanted wild and biblical and rahhhhhhh! Instead, you just woke up somewhere unfamiliar with your underwear on back to front."

Let's face it, there was an elephant in the room during the latter half of this series's production. And its name was Peter Jackson. When it was announced back in October that Aidan Turner would be joining Martin Freeman in New Zealand for what would likely be an eighteen month to two year production on The Hobbit, I think many of us knew that Toby Whithouse and his team were left with two options. Either kill off John Mitchell or try and accommodate cameo appearances for a prospective fourth series. They decided on the former.

S P O I L E R S !

BBCHD - 6 March 2011 - 10.00pm

"Once the curtain was drawn and I'd seen the true nature of nature... I realised these nightmare creatures had permitted us to mind the shop."

"Date of birth? Mr. Fuck You."

The penultimate episode opens with a flashback and we are taken back some twenty years to what presumably were the cage fights now spoken of in hushed tones by the vampire fraternity. The ringmaster of this particular carnival arrives to console the winner. The winner is McNair and he's given a state of the nation address by the Herrick we all once knew before George ripped him to shreds and he was reincarnated as 'Uncle Billy'. After describing the "fragile detente" between the human and supernatural worlds, he goes on to pour scorn on the lives of the "semi-detached" and their "Sunday roast with the in-laws... paddling pools and catalogues, five-a-side and Belgian beer". Pausing to consider it, his opinion of this human normality is "God, it sounds horrific!"

BBCHD - 27th February 2011 - 9.00pm

"Oh, shit Annie...you frightened me!" "Well, I'm a ghost. It's my prerogative."

"It's difficult enough to find the right words at a time like this. Why not rely on those of the literary greats like Auden... and Cheryl Cole."

"A werewolf ripped you to pieces. And yet you survived. I need you to tell me how."

"Eurgh. I don't know what's worse. That fact that you're a ghost or that you just used the word 'lover'"

"So, your dad's a ghost. And a pikey."

Writer Lisa McGee returns to the series after last year's episode in which Annie managed to communicate with her mother while working with a stage medium, helping other ghosts with their final messages to loved ones. She continues with the themes of the afterlife and how the bereaved cope with life in Daddy Ghoul. Here, the focus is on George and his estranged relationship with his mum and dad and how the news of his father's death ultimately brings the family back together. Bubbling away underneath the gentle comedy-drama of this plot is the aftermath of Nina's anonymous call to the Box Tunnel Twenty hotline and how this brings policewoman Nancy to the doorstep of Honolulu Heights looking for one John Mitchell.

S P O I L E R S

BBCHD - 20 February 2011 - 9.00pm

"Pissing Jenga"

"At a wild guess I'd say they want to know how my Uncle Billy from Bristol came to be in a Barry psych ward."

"You need to come to Barry. You need to talk to a man called John Mitchell."

As 'Johnny Remember Me' wafts through the psychiatric care unit at the beginning of this week's episode and George claps eyes on the resurrected form of Herrick, you get the feeling that no matter where they run, our housemates will never outrun their past lives.

S P O I L E R S 

BBCHD - 13 February 2011 - 9.00pm

"Until NHS Direct get back to me about my pregnant werewolf query, we have no other option."

“Well, lucky she’s dead already. Saves you the trouble of killing her one day.”

"Only a vampire would curse in front of ladies."

"Conceived doggy-style, I presume."

John Jackson's episode immediately sets out its store in the opening flashback. We've been waiting for the return of McNair and his son Tom since Lia because it seemed likely they would be the 'werewolf shaped bullet' bringing Mitchell's life to an end. Interestingly, Jackson takes us back some 15 years to when Tom was a young boy and symbolically underlines what will be the major theme of the episode about Tom's maturing masculinity in relation to McNair's role of the proxy parent and George and Nina's own concern, as parents, for the safety of their unborn child.

S P O I L E R S 

BBCHD - 6 February 2010 - 9.00pm

"You rescued her from hell"

"I think someone's in denial. How can she not know that she's dead?"

"Oh, what? We're a supernatural B&B now are we? What next? A mummy?"

So we get to discover what exactly was going on in the sealed off mortuary with the rather amusing pre-titles sequence taking us back two weeks in time to the grisly awakening of the zombified Sasha (a show stealing central performance from Alexandra Roach). The third episode of this current series once again focuses on the characters rather than delivering a grand narrative in the style of the Jaggat/Kemp arc. As I pointed out last week the tone is much closer to the first year's stories and Type 4 is no exception, with writer Jamie Mathieson delivering perhaps the best episode so far that explores the very human consequences of Mitchell's rescue of Annie, sex between consenting werewolves and the blackest exploration of human foibles and frailties.

BBCHD - 23 January 2011 - 9.00pm

"A slice of heaven in Barry. I bet heaven doesn't have chemical toilets."

S P O I L E R S

No, this isn't Location, Location, Location with Kirstie Allsop and Phil Spencer... in case you wandered in after the 'previously' montage. Mitchell, George and Nina are in Barry and are being shown round a property by someone who sounds and looks like a slim-line version of Gavin and Stacey's Nessa. For a minute or two, as Mitchell, George and Nina freak out over the reappearance of Annie on their television set, I thought she might have been inclined to say, "What's occurrin'?"

The three friends decide that the rather retro looking, former B & B will do for them. It's going to have to work hard to become as much of an iconic place as the pink house in Bristol. That always felt like it was an additional character in the set-up so I'll reserve judgement on the faux-Hawaiian theme that seems to describe the previous owners' desperate lack of taste here. In that brief exchange between tenant and landlord there is however a flicker of respect for one of many unspoken agendas. Annie.

A quick plug for a fellow reviewer and writer, Joanne Black. We share the same publisher and it gives me great pleasure to tell you about her own book on a favourite series of mine, Being Human.

While we eagerly await the third series of this cult supernatural drama starring Russell Tovey, Aidan Turner and Lenora Crichlow, this new book examines all the characters, episodes and plots from the first two series. The mythology behind the series is also explored as are the locations and the birth of the show back in 2008. The book is illustrated throughout by Chris Wreford.

Being Human, created for BBC Three by Toby Whithouse, puts the supernatural firmly into the everyday world.

That cute, geeky hospital porter? A werewolf.
A flash of a sunny smile and some grey leggings? A ghost.
The dark-eyed Irish guy at the bar? A vampire.

George (Russell Tovey), Annie (Lenora Crichlow) and Mitchell (Aidan Turner) live in a pink house in Bristol and all they want is to be normal, to fit in - to be human.


After a successful pilot in 2008, a full series of Being Human was commissioned and shown in 2009, with a second series following in 2010. The pilot gained an enthusiastic and vocal online fanbase - a community that grew and grew throughout the series, helping to give BBC Three one of its most successful programmes.

As well as reviewing each episode from the first two series in detail, Joanne Black's book looks at the birth of the show and profiles the characters and the mythology behind them. Not forgetting - of course - the plots, the themes, the darkness and the humour, in fact just about everything that being human really means.

An affectionate, humorous, and occasionally slightly sarcastic, exploration of the world of Being Human. A must for all fans of the series.

The book is published 6th December 2010 and the full press release is now available here. Please feel free to download and promote the book via your websites and blogs. 


You can order direct from the publishers Classic TV Press at the discounted price of £12.49 and get that delivered straight to your door cheaper and faster. It is also available via Amazon.

Enjoy!

BBCHD - 28th February 2010 - 9.00pm

Not quite what I was expecting. Expectations are a funny thing, aren't they. Well, they don't turn out as you...er...well...expected. So, not a balls to the wall clash between Kemp's religious army and the remaining vampires led by Mitchell and Daisy. Daisy? Yes, Daisy...where exactly did Daisy go after turning Mitchell all strange last week? More on her later.

Anyway, this one was more of a satisfying slow burn. More like John Carpenter's The Thing or any other 'base under siege' storyline with Mitchell sneaking around the facility and quietly taking out Kemp's rather pretty looking altar boys. Altar boys delivering trays of tea, ghost like, to Lucy Jaggat who calmly asks where her Garfield mug is whilst all around her is being prepared for slaughter. All delivered with lashings of atmosphere by director Charles Martin. And with the facility flickering across our retinas with that dodgy lighting, George and Annie sat and debated their reasons for being in Kemp's house of horrors in the first place. Neither was entirely sure why they were there and George certainly didn't know Annie's real reason.


Lucy is somewhat troubled. Well, I guess you would be after blowing up a nest of vampires and luring George and Annie into Kemp's den under false pretences. And she's seen the rather gory looking and disturbing manifestation of Amy McBride, a previous victim of the facility's techniques. Is this her guilt conscience coming back to haunt her? Kemp, meanwhile, paws over the mementos of his obsession with Jaggat - her hairbrush, a lipstick stained mug - suggesting he's dragged her into this on very suspect grounds and emphasising that he himself no longer possesses any innocence as he dictates his observations of George and Annie. (*Thanks to Nimbus for pointing that out to me - I must have been drunk whilst watching this episode to miss that!) 'The facade of friendship is impressively consistent. To all extents, an innocent ear hearing their conversation would assume their relationship to be entirely authentic. Entirely human.' This reveals Kemp's biggest misapprehension. He's so corrupted that he could never hear anything innocent in those conversations when the rest of us know perfectly well they are the most genuine communications of all. His actions are not just performed in the name of God, they're sanctioned by that desperate collection of objects in his desk drawer. All for love.

'Why don't you pop down the Londis and get a pint of milk?' seems such an innocent request as Mark Fleischmann's rather sordid Technician gets off watching Nina ('you naughty little Type Three') and sends the altar boy out shopping as an unseen Mitchell slowly bites his way through the facility's staff. It's Toby Whithouse's forte to slam something funny and rude immediately next to something full of dread and horror and this finale allows him to really show off. He even drags the 'intelligent design' debate into the equation as Lucy Jaggat talks about faith and fellow scientists drawing a cock on the back of her lab coat when it got out she saw science as a way of accepting the supernatural. She tells George that she can see the werewolf as a separate creature looking out of his human form. George however knows that he and the werewolf are the same despite Lucy's admonition, similarly to Kemp's, to 'do good work'.

George's conversation with Nina also reveals another theme that has been weaving in and out of the series too. He's frightened the cure will work because, in effect, he, and Nina, Mitchell and Annie, are all defined by what they are not. They are not human but by acknowledging their supernatural selves they take one step further towards the human. Without the werewolf, that definition is gone. It's a brilliant scene and once again Russell Tovey and Sinead Keenan prove what an asset they both are to the series. 'Nina, you are worth a thousand of me,' he says to her after she admits the same apprehension. 'Just the one'll do', she confirms. And as if that scene doesn't go far enough to show you why this series is so good, it's followed by the heart rending suicide telephone message left by Annie.


In case you were wondering what exactly she dictated into the answer machine last week, it's here revealed in all its tender, brittle glory. 'The prospect of this scream of time in front of me...is terrifying. This endless life, never aging, never kissing, never having a family - all the things that make you human. Not having them is a worse hell than anything they've got over there.' - referring to what lies beyond her in passing over. A very moving scene especially in light of what happens later and her reasoning is very eloquent when she is then confronted by George. If he and Nina are cured, she will disappear. No one will see her and her being seen, her being human is defined by the fact that George, Mitchell and Nina can see her. Her loneliness will be defined by their absence.


Mitchell's attack on the facility intensifies and George suspects something is going on from the isolation room that he and Nina are locked in. An innocent game of I-Spy leads to some interesting revelations. Yes, George has a nice arse but he also discovers that Tully, the werewolf he met way back in the first series, has left him a message about their fate. Mitchell shoots down Lucy's bizarre creationist theories about evil by reminding her that the need to pre-order body bags might be a signal that her 'good work' has gone a little too far. Her reductionist view of the world seems to be based not only on what the supernaturals shouldn't have or be but also on her own faith denying her any of the joys of life and hope. Her religious faith is the most reductionist view of all. And as Mitchell points out, 'We're all God's children. And God's a bit of a bastard.'


By now, you should have worked out that the only way Annie will be able to pass over is in the presence of a door. To create the door someone has to die. And Kemp knows this as soon as Hennessey, the rather sweet psychic whom Annie is communicating through, confirms this. You just know poor old Hennessey is going to cop it. He's killed by a completely psychotic Kemp and his ghost is dragged into the afterlife through the freshly appeared door and, as a distraught George and Nina watch, Annie too is sucked into the void. It's a truly terrifying and disturbing sequence. One thing bothers me about it. Why doesn't Annie use her powers to close the door? What was the point of Sykes teaching her how to do this?


Oh, and a quick shout out for Donald Sumpter as Kemp. He has been consistently good in the series and the scene where he confronts Mitchell in the corridor and taunts him about Annie's demise is blood curdling. 'Did you feel her go? Did you hear her scream as she was ripped from the world?' Thankfully, in another exceptional and deeply emotional scene, George manages to convince Mitchell that killing Kemp will be no way to honour Annie or his own last shreds of humanity. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Because by the time the episode sees the survivors of the facility hiding out in a remote country cottage we all wish he'd finished Kemp off. It goes from bad to worse as Nina's snooping (Inch High Private Eye!) into Lucy's history and her 'bullshit' publications ('Did you keep the receipt? I can get you your money back', she offers to Nina) gives away their location.


Both Lucy and Kemp come calling for a climactic final 20 minutes. Lucy's come to say sorry ('What? Like you pranged the car!' snaps Nina) but inadvertently allows Kemp to have another go at destroying the friends. Rather like the tendency with a series such as Heroes, Whithouse doesn't quite know when to stop piling on the disaster, the twist and the multiple cliffhanger. Not only does Kemp kill Lucy, but by doing so he creates a door through which Annie quickly appears and drags Kemp away into oblivion (and there isn't a form for that, apparently). It's a nice idea but I felt it was a rushed solution to what exactly they were going to do with Kemp and Lucy and it also felt somewhat telegraphed that we hadn't quite seen the last of Annie. It's partly redeemed by that astonishing scene where the friends speak to her through the television as she describes what seems to be the Kafka-esque bureaucratic hell of the afterlife, full of numbers, waiting rooms and form signing. A beautiful little scene, full of tenderness and compassion ('don't forget me, will you?), with the promise that George and Mitchell will go and rescue her in the next series. The end.


Er, not quite. For some reason Toby Whithouse then decides to tack on a bizarre final climax showing Daisy (oh, there she is) and Cara (remember, she had her teeth knocked out by Mitchell and was left rotting in the cave tunnels under Bristol) bleeding themselves to death over a reanimated Herrick. I love Herrick, honestly, I do but there had better be a jolly good reason for bringing him back because right now this feels like just one more rabbit being pulled out of the hat in a room full of rabbits and hats called Daisy, Cara, Lucy and Kemp. A tad indulgent perhaps for, what was on the whole, an intensely thrilling and moving episode in a somewhat uneven second series. Despite that, it's still one of the best British fantasy series in years and I wouldn't miss it for the world. I'll be back for Series Three.

Official site

BBCHD - 21st February 2010 - 9.00pm

Opening with the now familiar pre-titles flashback sequence, we find ourselves in London 1941 and witness the first encounter between Ivan and Daisy. A fantastic scene that exposes the reasons why they eventually partnered up, with Ivan suggesting to Daisy that she will always have thwarted ambitions if she stays with the humans, challenging her to seize danger and become indestructible. A reflection, in effect, of the terrible revenge that she encourages Mitchell to carry out later in the episode.


Toby Whithouse is back as writer and you know that major sections of the story arc are about to shift into place because this is the penultimate episode of the series. As Nina walks back down the street she left at the beginning of this series we know she's there at Kemp and Jaggat's behest and that a trap is about to be sprung. Great to see Sinead Keenan as Nina and back as a major cog in the series' plotting. Her chat with Annie is intercut with George waking up in his new home as Annie reveals to Nina that he has moved on and found someone else. Also, take note of how concerned George is about what time it is when he does wake up, at breakfast with Sam and Molly and then Nina's mention of the full moon because it's a little signal of how Whithouse is going to turn George's world upside down by the end of the episode.

Russell Tovey and Sinead are, as ever, great together and their first get together in the kitchen is bristling with wariness and anger. Love the bit where Nina explains that she's met people who might have a cure. 'For what?' ask George,  'Cystitis, what do you think!' snaps Nina. Even though George isn't convinced about 'the priest and the mad scientist' and their cure, he decides to meet them with Nina. He's seemingly over Nina and there's a sense here that he's just humouring her, fearing that if she stays around his personal life will get too complicated. That this will be in ways that he doesn't know about yet is already suggestive of the overall structure and purpose of the story.


Mitchell picks through the devastating aftermath of the bomb at the funeral parlour, finding Daisy grieving over the death of Ivan. He believes that it was payback for the death of the Chief Constable and is still unaware of Lucy Jaggat's treachery and her part in Kemp's plans. A great set up where the audience knows more than the characters and there's a building sense of expectation and dread in what will happen when Mitchell eventually catches on. Daisy is not convinced and doesn't think it was the police.  She is aware of a recent shift in the balance between humans and vampires and tells Mitchell the humans are fighting back. Just like the war in which she met Ivan, she's now in the middle of another conflict, seeing Mitchell as a potential replacement for Ivan and as a rallying figure. She wants results and she's going to use Mitchell to get them.

George tells Mitchell of Nina's return and the alleged cure but, amusingly Mitchell's too busy rubbing himself (be still my beating heart) with cologne samples in magazines to recognise the threat. He also thinks Lucy's disappearance is simply down to the fact that he told her he was a vampire. The tension between the main characters innocence in the face of what's going on around them and the escalating threat from Jaggat and Kemp is brilliantly handled and I'm sure many of us were shouting at the telly at this point. This is further emphasised by Lucy apparently believing that Mitchell died in the bomb blast. Will she therefore play a pivotal role, out of pure guilt and her affection for Mitchell, in reversing what Kemp has in store for the three friends? This tragic inevitability is exactly what the series needs after two weeks of somewhat treading water.


Annie and George just think the meeting with Kemp and Nina is a bit of a lark and there's some lovely ribbing between the two characters before George lets their visitors into the house. But the tone completely shifts from George's undisguised mockery to his sense that Kemp might be onto something when he states that with each transformation the wolf gets stronger and this manifests itself in George's life in the period between changes.  This is something George is very aware of even though he finds the whole religious dimension to Kemp's solution rather hard to accept, especially when Nina herself equates their curse with 'Satan's miracles'. Like us, George finds it hard to understand how even Nina could fall for it all and their later animosity is very hard to stomach. The rebound of this is George's rather impetuous offer to marry Sam. Sadly, we all know it's going to go hideously wrong.

The pivotal moment arrives when Mitchell discovers Lucy's betrayal through the interrogation and murder of the coroner. Mitchell is transformed from a character we've admired for his restraint into an avenging demon as he and Daisy go for full out retaliation. It ushers in a final act that sees not just a reversal of Mitchell's nature but also the disintegration of George's new world and Annie's misguided capitulation to Kemp (after he contacts her through his trained psychic) where she thinks he'll help her cross over and she'll escape the boredom of her limbo existence. The hurt unleashed on the three characters is colossal.


Poor George undergoes a hideously humiliating public transformation at the school's parents evening because the clocks went back the previous night and his timing is out by an hour. It's a striking, brilliantly filmed sequence as he stumbles through the school and out into the streets, the camera in permanent close up on his bewildered, fanged face as the world lurches drunkenly around him. His screams of panic and desperation fade into a scene of a packed commuter train coming to an unscheduled halt and the sounds of an attack over the guard's intercom. Daisy and Mitchell have arrived and the resulting slaughter is horrific. The reveal of the blood spattered carriage and the torn up, disemboweled bodies is one of the most chilling sequences the series has ever done.


Annie submits to a tedious attempt to exorcise her. It fails because she needs a door to pass over. 'Did we bring a door?' asks the psychic of Kemp just as a partly transformed George bursts back into the only real refuge he's known. Annie is able to use her powers to calm him enough to get him into the cage. Kemp implores her to see him because he offers that he can help her and George. Sam is devastated and now understands that 'this is the thing' that George brings to their relationship. Molly however is terrified so much that George is reduced to tears, knowing that this chapter of his life, this desire to be normal, is over unless he attempts Kemp's cure.


Whithouse pushes Annie and George into their respective positions with Kemp whilst also redefining Mitchell in relation to them, turning him a disturbingly lascivious, sensual animal who insults them both but then warns them to stay out of the cities because they won't be safe much longer. As Annie and George leave the house to join Nina, Kemp and Jaggat, she looks back and pronounces 'we're not coming back here again, are we?' This is Whithouse foreshadowing the big changes that will come with the next series.

A doom laden episode that literally brings the shutters down on the series format thus far with a choral mass on the soundtrack and the characters sealed into Kemp's laboratory ('welcome to freedom' utters Lucy Jaggat). At the same time, Mitchell finally learns that Lucy is one and the same Professor Jaggat that Annie and George have offered themselves to. It really couldn't get any darker than that, could it?

Official site

BBCHD - 14th February 2010 - 9.00pm

The Devil was designed for temptation. He can be charming and clever. And exciting. And Mitchell can be those things too because he was made in the Devil's image, just as you were made in God's.

I like it. The three of us. It's us against the world.

Well, I don't want to be against the world anymore. 

The sixth episode and it really is clear that the production team don't know what to do with Annie. If indeed they have now put the 'death's door/men with ropes and sticks' idea to bed then they've shot themselves in the foot. Because it is conflict that drives the characters forward and whilst Mitchell and George actively move the overall story arc forwards, Annie is used either for a bit of tragi-comedy nonsense (the ghost baby) or the tragic reflection on and brief exploration of the afterlife concepts that the show has set up. But each time the series does this, the sub-plots are closed down, Annie gets upset, recovers and then they set it all up for her again in the next episode. Annie needs to become integral to the main story arc and the last two episodes have pushed her further away from that.


Characteristically, the episode opens with a flashback to London 1972. Basically this shows us a younger Kemp, a priest, whose family is attacked by vampires. Leaving his wife for dead, their actions give us a long overdue insight into why Kemp is so determined to eradicate the supernaturals, particularly the irredeemable vampires. Kemp's unshakable faith and Lucy's moral conflict over her relationship with Mitchell is a very powerful force running through the episode. It also forms the pivot around which the shattering climax operates. The episode offers further complex moral and theological questions about the interchangeable nature of good and evil. Much of this keys into the praxis of hysteria around Christian Fundamentalism and the continuing fear around 'otherness' - where those queer or 'non-natural' minorities as symbolised by werewolves, vampires and ghosts.


George is planning to move out and is house hunting much to the changrin of Annie. Annie wants everything to stay the same and believes something good has come to an end. The love lives of Mitchell and George, on the surface at least, suggest that this may well be the case and director Charles Martin underlines the possible future loneliness of the house with that lingering shot of the empty, battered sofa. The audience, however, knows better and can see that the relationship between Lucy and Mitchell is likely doomed as she plots with Kemp to blow the vampires to pieces with a bomb in the funeral parlour and that Sam's daughter Molly will scupper any plans George has because she knows he has a secret and will demand he reveal his true identity to Sam. Then, of course, there is Nina and we haven't seen Kemp's plan for her and George play out yet.


George is already bluffing his way round his monthly transformation by offering that he have to duck out Molly's parent-teacher evening because he's going tobogganing with Mitchell. He may have convinced Sam and whilst we've all been there, trying to put some flat-pack Ikea monstrosity together, swearing in front of the kids, we don't expect them to play 20 questions around the subject of tobogganing. Molly catches him out and a symbolic time bomb is set off counting down to when George will finally be forced to admit his 'otherness' to Sam.  


As these storylines gather pace, Annie goes off to explore and see what good she can do for the world. I did enjoy the sub-plot about her assisting Alan Cortez, the psychic who's lost his power to listen to the spirits trapped in limbo and waiting to go through death's door. The idea that there is a troupe of them following him around is a nice idea and there is plenty of comedy to offset the darker plot elements of the George and Mitchell stories. It reaches its climax when Annie's mother, Carmen (a superb performance from Jacquetta May), turns up at the theatre, wanting to achieve a kind of peace with her daughter in the afterlife. It's a very moving storyline and fleshes out Annie's family background but it's self-contained and doesn't go anywhere.


Love the fact that Ivan has most of the local vampires on his Twitter feed and uses it to gather the clan at the funeral parlour to hear Mitchell's announcement that he will no longer lead them. Unwittingly, Ivan lets Kemp's henchman in on the false assumption there's been a gas leak. And we all know what that means. As the clan gathers and Mitchell tries to persuade Ivan to take over, the bomb planted by Kemp goes off. It's a suitably exciting climax to an otherwise fairly weak episode. This action will of course lead to the final showdown between Mitchell, Lucy and Kemp. Judging by the trailer for the next episode it also includes Kemp using Nina to reel in George too. It's all to play for now.

Official site

BBCHD - 7th February 2010 - 9.00pm

"We've gone through the looking glass, Mitchell. And all those qualities, those qualities we had when we were human - mercy, for example - such a commendable quality in a man, such an indulgence now. Becoming a vampire doesn't change the personality. It liberates it. A vampire is the only truly free man.

That little scratch of conscience. That's a lie. That's not who you are. "

An attention grabbing blood spattered orgy that resembles the Manson killings of the late 1960s opens the episode and offers us a flashback to Mitchell's association with Herrick. In London 1969, the two vampires have been having a little fun and it's definitely the morning after the night before. It's great to see Jason Watkins back as Herrick and his return brings a welcome injection of very black humour to the episode. Picking his teeth, he explains to Mitchell that he will have to clean up because Herrick doesn't get on with the leader of the London vampires, 'Yeah, but their head guy and I...we don't erm...I sort of killed his mum'.


There's a great montage that follows, of Mitchell rushing round the flat, getting rid of bloody sheets, scrubbing down walls and running the hoover over the floor, matched with the jaunty lyrics of Hermans Hermits 'I'm Into Something Good'. A sequence that works on a couple of levels as the surrealism of a vampire cleaning a flat after a night of debauchery with several girls crashes into the irony of the lyrics that will indicate that Mitchell will soon discover he isn't into something good and an innocent story of boy meets girl is an abrupt contradiction to the two dead girls that Mitchell hoovers round. And then, as he makes his escape, Mitchell meets Josie. Or rather he hides out in her flat and keeps her prisoner.

Now, if you'll remember, Josie was the old friend who was in hospital in Episodes Five and Six of the first series and sacrificed herself to save Michell after being staked by Herrick. Picking up her story adds a great dimension to the flashback sequences, telling us how they met and how Mitchell, even then, was on the brink of controlling his blood lust and forming friendships that didn't depend on 'turning' them. By far the strongest plot running through the series at the moment, Mitchell's story has been developing very well over the last few weeks. It's a bit of a shame then that some of the equally good work with both Annie and George is rather frittered away this week.


Last week's very strong Annie plot is this week substituted with an annoying bit of fluff with her and a ghost baby. It's an interesting concept but it's ultimately one that doesn't move Annie's story on any further and I have a nagging feeling that the writers don't know what to do with her. Yes, it's very sad that she has to hand the baby back and that she's no longer in a position to have children of her own but it just underlines her status as a ghost rather than adding a new dimension to her or carrying forward a plot. Lenora Crichlow handles the comedy of it all very well but she's more than just a comedy foil and deserves better material, as we saw last week in the terrific story with Sykes.


George also seems to be behaving rather uncharacteristically. The series has failed somewhat to convince me of his relationship with Sam. His recovery from Nina seems rather rushed and this episode seems to suggest that he's so smitten with her that he's prepared to chuck away his friendship with Mitchell. It's very dramatic and well played, it has to be said, but it's not being true to the characters and is forcing them to react against type in difficult situations simply for the sake of drama and not for the actual development of characters. We know George overcompensates much of the time but I wasn't convinced with the whole sub-plot suggesting he was about to abandon Mitchell because he'd met Sam. In the end I think this is just a means to an end and we'll find George having to decide between Nina and Sam and making some earth-shattering decision to let either one go or even die. Or is that too obvious?


Still, we now know he's lost his job (well, inevitable after beating up the boss last week) and is desperate for stability and hence his clinging to the hope of moving in with Sam. Sam can see how desperate and rushed it all feels and quite rightly gets him to see that. I loved Sam's curmudgeonly daughter who, very truthfully within the complex life of her single parent, must strongly approve of the men her mother meets and gets involved with. I'm sure most kids feel the same way in that situation. George's efforts, buying magazines ('a free make up kit? Why don't you just put me on the game and be done with it' she retorts) and the sandwiches he prepares for Molly both particularly being rejeced, also result in some amusing situations.

Far, far stronger is the dilemma that Mitchell faces. Chief Constable Wilson now wants him to kill a convicted paedophile ('it's affirmative action time') as part of the deal he has with the vampire community. However, Mitchell reminds Wilson that he's clean and will not do it. However, Wilson persists and when the man is released on bail ('should be home by now, watching Tracy Beaker with a box of tissues' suggests Wilson) he once again asks Mitchell to kill him. This time with the caveat that if Mitchell refuses he'll sever his connections with the vampires and expose them, round them all up and burn them all. 

He visits the paedophile and there is an interesting allusion to Mitchell's vampirism when the man declares 'Every time I think I've beaten it. It doesn't die. It doesn't stop'. Mitchell forces him to go to the police and reasons with him that he'd be safer in prison than he is outside with Mitchell trying to kill him. He doesn't kill him because he's still clinging to his desire not to kill and to lead by example. He returns to Wilson and adamantly tells him the deal is off. Wilson argues that there is a natural order to all things (perhaps referring back to Herrick's notion of humans as 'Darwin's children') and that Mitchell is upsetting it.

Wilson, again like Herrick, argues that Mitchell's sudden morality is not what he is, little knowing that at least since the 1960s, and his meeting with Josie, Mitchell actually is a vampire with a conscience. In a final, very disturbing scene, Mitchell chooses to kill Wilson as this seems his only way of reinforcing his abstinence and his desire to see all the vampires do the same. This is contrasted with a similar situation in 1969 where Mitchell is ordered by Herrick to kill Josie. Then, he covers up the fact that he didn't kill her and now, he murders Wilson and hates himself for it.


The double edge to this is that he turns to Lucy Jaggat whom he presumably feels will protect him, little knowing she's under orders from Kemp and has a huge stake next to her bed, ready to extinguish him. He confesses his vampire status to her and his truthfulness complicates her own feelings for him even though she already knows what he is. The episode closes with her poised to stake him but relenting and finally taking up the responsibilities of Josie who similarly offered herself as protector, someone to help him beat the addiction. 'Save me', he begs her in very much the same manner that he begged Josie back in 1969. This is signposted via a montage of him and Josie kissing together and similarly him and Lucy kissing, with Jefferson Airplane's 'Somebody To Love' on the soundtrack. Again, the lyrics of the song underline the relationship between Mitchell and the women. It perfectly sums up his search for succor.

A good episode, particularly in developing the Mitchell storyline, but one which uses Annie merely as the comedy foil and presents a somewhat uncharacteristic George, prepared to dump his two friends and move out of the house. Well directed by Kenny Glenaan who gives us two exceptionally good sequences at the top and tail of the 55 minutes that bring alive Mitchell's dilemma with superb use of music on the soundtrack and whose confidence with the visuals is improving with some great wide angle and low angle shots coupled with interesting lighting and grading.

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BBCHD - 31st January 2010 - 9.00pm

"It's like when they dress up those bears and make them dance for the tourists in Istanbul. Have you ever seen that? Well, this great big mountain of power and fury, done up in a fez and a waistcoat. And all the time you're just waiting for it to wake up, realise what it is, and tear someone's throat out."

We're taken back a year in the pre-titles sequence to when Lucy Jaggat first met Kemp and we're given a clue about why Jaggat is involved with the fundamentalist Kemp. She's written a paper on a gene that could be the cause of evil! Merely speculative, of course, but Kemp's positively salivating at the prospect of working with her. What I like about this episode is that it doesn't throw Jaggat onto the 'evil' bandwagon that Kemp and company have started up. It paints her in certain shades of grey that suggests she has compassion and could be redeemed. Which will be handy because Mitchell seems to be getting rather attached to her.

The BBC are obviously keen to get the Being Human franchise moving at top speed with an announcement of a third series, a move to Cardiff, and the release of these three paperback tie-ins within so many weeks of the start of the second series.

BBCHD - 24th January 2010 -  9.00pm

Three episodes in and still going strong. And various pieces of the overall plot arc - Professor Jaggat and Kemp versus the supernaturals - spectacularly spring into focus by the end of this episode.

Whilst Mitchell gets unwillingly dragged into the 'sturm und drang' of the power vacuum in the 'vampire community' by the coquettish Daisy, George and Annie decide to do a bit of matchmaking with Hugh and his former girlfriend Kirsty. How well these two sub-plots work and how comfortably they sit beside each other is down to personal taste I would think. Personally, after two episodes full of jet-black story development it was good to bring in a bit of a light touch. Splendidly, George and Annie as romantic matchmakers works well and, more importantly, forms one of the comic reversals of the episode.


There is the cod-Pythonesque flashback to Bristol of 1665, complete with a Catholic priest asking for a bit more light as he condemns a hidden coven of vampires ('that's much better') to eternal damnation or nonchalantly asking about which order they should be destroyed in ('Should we start with the infants?') and checking his paperwork as vampires get their teeth smashed in. This then is later reversed in what is one of the harshest scenes in the episode where Mitchell must prove he means business to the chaotic group of vampires adrift in the city by punishing the errant Cara by similarly bashing her canines from her mouth. Oh, Mitchell, what have you become!


Mitchell is, of course, under pressure to sort the vampires out now that the system put in place by Herrick begins to fail and vampire murders start to turn up on a regular basis in A&E. Not only does this peak the interest of Lucy, the doctor that Mitchell has formed an attachment to, but it also throws light on the 'system', revealing not only the pathologist Quinn in the employ of both the police and Herrick but also the deal Herrick had with DCI Wilson who sees the vampires as a neat way to keep the crime figures down. The results of his renewed pact with Mitchell are truly shocking as they move in and murder the surviving murder victim Marcus, cover their tracks by signing reports and burning statements.

Mitchell must restore order and the episode charts his journey towards his reluctantly being crowned 'king' of the vampires, beginning with his imagining pulling the plug on victim Marcus and having his human-like relationships with George and Annie diminishing as a result and the potential of partnering up with Lucy no longer a possibility. This is both tragically and comically displayed - Mitchell's advice to George that he must take responsibility for himself now, a breaking of the bonds that hold them together, is contrasted nicely with the hilarious rant about The Real Hustle being bumped around the BBC3 schedules. A right pain if you've just come in having tried to get vampire society back on track, followed by nagging from your housemates about not doing the washing up. Marigolds ahoy!


The relationship with Lucy has a certain cynical philosophical edge to it. As Mitchell tries to cover up his intentions for Marcus with a bit of preying they engage in some witty banter about the nature of faith. Lucy remarks she's never seen the last minute appeal to God manifested in a porter before. "I suppose the bad working conditions have driven you to believe in a monotheist deity?" "That's what happens when you haven't got a strong trade union," retorts Mitchell. "I blame Thatcher," she replies. This is all put into perspective when Lucy's true identity is revealed at the end of the episode and we can pretty much surmise that all her work banter has been an act from day one.


Meanwhile George and Annie decide that the best way to help out Hugh, who has been looking for Annie and now can no longer see her after her near-death encounter with the death door, is to get him back with his former girlfriend Kirsty. Annie convinces George to become Kirsty's worst ever boyfriend in order to send her running back to Hugh. His plan to take her to a three hour German art house film followed by a kebab completely backfires and he realises that he will need to take the direct approach with Kirsty and remind her that there are always second chances. Even if his own chances with Nina look exhausted. It's a beautifully written and played sequence, reminding us of much of the humour of the first series. Russell Tovey and Lenora Crichlow have natural comic abilities and are delightful.

When this includes Mitchell and Hugh, it also explores how men tend to do practical things, such as getting drunk, to discuss their problems whilst women tend to want to explore issues emotionally, diplomatically. But humour, albeit of a darker variety, permeates the downward spiral of Mitchell. Cara's recital of Winehouse's 'Rehab' as he asks the vampires to get on the wagon is hilarious. Wilson's request for money in his conversation with Mitchell on the bridge is justified by the fact that he has "an extension to finish and not to mention the wife's bloody eBay habit".


Kirsty does get back together with Hugh but the reversal here is that Annie is once again alone and George receives a devastatingly final phone call from Nina. Tovey and Sinead Keenan absolutely break your heart as Nina and George say their final words. There's a beautiful section of incidental music that helps deliver the emotional punch of the scene too. Let's hope they aren't that final because as that scene reveals, Nina is in the clutches of Kemp and...Professor Lucy Jaggat. Eek! What a twist!

A brilliant episode. The series keeps getting better and better.

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