BEING HUMAN: Season Three
Starring, Aidan Turner, Russell Tovery, Sinead Keenan, Leonora Crichlow, Jason Watkins
“There is a Werewolf Shaped Bullet heading for the heart, and its for all fans who adore this wonderful series”
The best show on the British Telly (apart from Misfits) returns for its third season with more added pressure from fans and critics alike. What was once a secret on the BBC Three TV station exploded into life when the not much watched channel recorded its highest ever ratings for the season two finale. It seemed that at last a much neglected show about a Werewolf, a ghost and a Vampire all living in a flat had finally began to get the intention it so richly deserved, but with a new found fan base comes new responsibility, if series one was the build up and season two like a steam train out of control, how could number three get the balance right!
For the start, the events of the previous hang over the proceedings. With the gang minus Annie (Crichlow) who after being dragged kicking and screaming in the climax of season two, is stick in purgatory, leaving the others to up root and set up a new life in Barry Island South Wales. From the off there is an air of menace lingering in the air. George (Tovery) and Nina (Keenan) the two loved up couple who are actually Werewolves, are adjusting to life together after spending much of season two apart, while Mitch (Adian Turner)is still a troubled soul. His vampire urges that made him kill a dozen people on a sub train has made him a wanted man with the police determined to find this vicious serial killer which has left Mitch a broken man. Full of regret and with the guilt eating him up inside, he is determined to save Annie and attempts a rescue mission inside purgatory On arrival he encounters a soul named Lia (Lacey Turner) recently deceased who tells him that she will show him where Annie is but first he needs to relive some of his memories through each door he opens, just think of the scene from Bill and Teds Bogus Journey and you get what I mean! Lia though has a secret, somehow she is connected to Mitch and while we get the answer towards the end of the first episode, it is here after she helps him find Annie tells him with her final words that set up this seasons story arc!
Mitchell is going to die, by a wolf shaped bullet!
What follows is a change of tone to what we expect from Being Human. Gone is the pace that seemed so relentless in the previous series, Season three is all about tension building and while you may complain at first that the show seems to have lost its boom! the pay off is worth the wait. The story slowly creaks along with the arrival of two new Werewolves, one in the shape of Mcnair Robson Greene and the other in his son Tom (Michael Soca) who invade the lives of the usual four adding more pressure on Mitch whose paranoia begins to reach boiling point. With so much plot going on including a fresh spin on the Zombie story with a young girl who refuses to believe she is dead, its quite easy to forget the jaw dropping moment of the second series when we see the original bad guy Herrick return from the dead. His impending arrival is a perfect example of the pace of this series. If you are hoping that he bursts onto the scene in the very beginning and cause the chaos we all expect then you are wrong. Typically by the standards of Being Human it does not do the easy thing. Its a good five episodes (of eight) when he arrives and then he is not the character we expected.
Its what makes this particular series so good. It knows what the fans want and leaves you waiting. It teases you until you beg for more, an outcome that never seems to come. But when it does and oh boy, I mean when it strikes, the impact is immense. The last but one episode is one of the greatest episodes in TV history. Ok, I know that is a bold thing to say but somehow the writers have taken up all that built up energy and just released it onto an unsuspected audience. The night after the showing the internet was on breakdown due to the many fans stunned and needing to talk to any fan to share their experience. It takes a lot to shock me but even I was gobsmacked by the chaos on screen and it made Being Human instantly become one of my favourite shows of all time!
The trouble is though that after such a gut wrenching episode the finale had a lot to live up too. In a crazy way it fell for the 24 problem in that it had too many eggs to fit in one basket. Just ask many Jack Bauer fans and they will tell you that the only flaw of that TV show is that it peaked why before the climax and the last hour just ended too easy. Here its the same, the first half hour ties up the loose ends too nicely for my liking and at first I was annoyed by what I was seeing. But then the show went into a different direction (again) and the last twenty minutes were a joy to behold.
With rumours circling the internet for the past two weeks about what Being Human were going to do and with fans worried that it was true, to see it actually happen was still an eye opener. No spoilers here, but the climatic ending tied up everything that has happened since we first saw this group of friends. It was ambitious and stunning that left many fans crying long into their pillow. But for me it was the final image that summed it all up. When the gang turned to face the camera it was like a nod that this series lives on no matter what. The fight goes on which makes season 4 a mouth-watering possibility.
Overall: Totally different direction to the previous series, Being Human surely likes to reinvent itself and by the time you have wiped those tears from your eyes, you left with a need for Being Human 4 to start straight away. A clear sign that this TV show is just getting better!!!!!!
4 OUT OF 5
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