OLL LEWIS: Review: Being Human (BBC3, 9pm Sundays)

(Warning: contains spoilers)

Every so often there comes a craze that a group of people obsess over. Previous examples of this include Turtles, yo-yos and thanks in a large part to the X Files in the late 90s it was the turn of the paranormal in general to go stratospheric. After a while these crazes die down, which is sometimes a shame as when the paranormal craze was on there were a lot more people out there publishing original content rather than just copy and pasting from an old Eric Frank Russell book, I was never that fond of yo-yos though, could never work the damn things. Anyway, the current craze is for vampires and to a lesser extent werewolves. This is mainly due to the Twilight books and films and the fact that for some reason young ladies find Robert Patterson and his oddly shaped chin very allureing. This has lead to a raft of other vampire related tv series, books and films being release in the hope of cashing in on this craze, to such an extent that you'll notice a whole new bookshelf section in Waterstones entitled 'Dark Romance'.

Now Being Human is different. It started off as a pilot on BBC3 before vampires were as popular as they are at the moment and has little romantic content so is not a cash in on Twilight's popularity like many of the other vampire series about at the moment, in fact as an extremely well written drama with excellent production values and faultless acting it is pretty much the antidote to Twilight. Being Human follows the lives of George, a werewolf, Mitchell, a Vampire, and Annie, a ghost, after they find themselves living in the same house in Bristol, they are later joined by George's girlfriend Nina (who he accidentally turns into a werewolf as well). Following on from the end of series 2 the house-mates find themselves in Barry Island and with Annie currently trapped in purgatory. The first episode of series 3 follows Mitchell's attempt to rescue Annie and his own journey through purgatory and Nina getting George out of police custody, after being wrongly arrested for dogging, before they both change into wolves when the full moon comes out. The episode also focuses on new characters McNair (played by Robson Green) and his son Tom, who happen to be werewolves and vampire hunters. Tom runs into George in the woods just before his arrest and is intrigued to learn there are other werewolves in the area, where as McNair is captured by vampires led by Vincent (played by Paul Kaye) and forced to fight in a cage after he changes.

All makes for a great start to the new series, which according to the producers will continue with Herrick tracking down George and Mitchell after their blood (perhaps literally). Herrick, for those unfamiliar with the previous two series, was the vampire that sired Mitchell and had a plan to eventually turn all humans into either vampires or farm them for their blood. George killed him by beheading him at the end of series 1 while George was in wolf form. In the Being human universe it is possible to bring vampires back from the dead depending upon the circumstances of their death. It would seem they cannot be brought back to life if they die in a fire, as events towards the end of series 2 illustrate, but in some cases like after being staked the removal of the stake and liberal application of blood can bring the vampire back to life. At the end of series 2 Herrick was resurrected in a similar manner after two vampires found his remains.

To accompany the series the BBC is also funding a web based spin-off series called Becoming Human which will feature the vampire Adam, introduced in the second episode of series 3, and be a series of interactive whodunit mysteries with further clues being posted daily on the Being Human website. It certainly sounds like an interesting idea and, as it has the same writing team as the series, should keep up the same level of quality and sit well with the series as a whole. The only potential stumbling block I can see is how complex it will be possible to make the mysteries within the presumably short episodes of the spin off, it won't be half as fun if you can figure out the solution as the spin-offs credits are rolling and the daily clues to be posted on the website would be somewhat of a waste. Hopefully though the spin-off will not suffer from this problem, but I'm sure it'll be fun to watch all the same.

In conclusion I urge you to watch Being Human if you do not already, it is one of the best series on British Television.