Being Human 2 (2009)

Our Rating: 2 out of 5

Rated: TVMA

Reviewer: Charity Bishop

My mother constantly complains about the vampire phenomenon and hopes it will soon fall by the wayside. It won't as long as programs like this one are around!

Life has become somewhat normal for the unlikely trio rooming together in a small house in town. George (Russell Tovey) has become accustomed to shifting into a wolf whenever the moon is full, although he is not particularly pleased about it. Mitchell (Aidan Turner) has learned to curb his vampire habits and is considering dating a doctor who works at the hospital where he and George are both orderlies. And Annie (Lenora Crichlow) has decided to get a job in a local pub -- never mind that she's a ghost so long as the customers can actually see her. It's Nina (Sinead Keenan), however, who is struggling, not only with her newfound knowledge of the supernatural realm but also the realization that George has unwittingly scratched her, dooming her to share his fate as a werewolf. Then there are the two troublemaking vampires who just moved into town, a religious man bent on finding a cure for werewolves even if it means killing them in the process, and the desire of the vampire community to crown a new king.

Annie becomes friends with a charming man in the pub who is hiding a dark secret from her, but all she can see is the romantic potential, not realizing that the pub owner is actually falling in love with her. But soon, romance will become the least of her concerns...

Everyone agrees that the first episode in this second season of the popular BBC drama is rubbish, but fortunately the show takes on an actual plot in subsequent episodes and even becomes compelling. There's a lot of fun ideas, like a BAA group meeting (Blood Addicts Anonymous) for recovering vampires, Annie babysitting a ghost child for a day and a half, and some more serious ones -- like what emphasis faith has on supernatural creatures, and a defrocked priest attempting to help the werewolves and end the vampires. One might question the show as a result, but it is neither anti-religious nor pro-religious: priests simply exist, sometimes good ones and sometimes bad, but they do have authority over vampires and ghosts. The most-used priest turns out to be a villain willing to do anything he must to kill vampires, but other characters display various amounts of faith. A new character, Lucy (), spends much time in prayer and repentance -- but she also spends the night with Mitchell.

A psychic is featured in one episode, faking it because he can no longer hear real ghosts; Annie acts as an "intermediary" between him and the spirit world, until his gift returns. There are some sinister and/or creepy moments with characters on television interacting with individuals in the room, implying there are dark spirits about. But morality is the biggest problem -- well, that and overall content. George and Mitchell neither one have traditional ideas of morality; Mitchell is famous for seducing women, and George moves in with a woman he has known two weeks. There is quite a lot of near and partial nudity revolving around werewolf transformations; George is shown with a hand over his crotch, and later we almost see frontal nudity; he has sex with a married vampire (movement and moaning) in the first episode; Saul tries to force himself on Annie; the camera pans a naked, prepubescent girl on a morgue table; we see a half-human, half-wolf nipple as a girl morphs; Mitchell and Lucy have sex, complete with passionate undressing and movement, interspersed with a "memory" he has of similar behavior with another girl in the 60's. A couple dozen f-words, repeated uses of s**t, and more than a half dozen abuses of Jesus' name round out the dialogue. Violence is moderate (fist fights, morphing scenes, explosions, and vampire attacks) but there is a lot of blood; it spurts out of arteries and drains from bodies; when vampires go on angry rampages, they leave torn-up people behind, in one instance with a person's bowels hanging out.

I love the concept of this show. It's clever. The characters are likable (well, most of the time). They seem real. But I don't like the crass content, the foul language, the sexual content, or the nudity. I happen to think you can still have an attractive, adult program without that kind of thing. Alas, Being Human is a little too grow up for my taste.