“The only thing left is your conscience. And there will come a time when you surrender that too.”
Being Human
This week on Being Human: George the werewolf meets another werewolf and takes him home, which was pretty much sure to end in disaster. Mitch the vampire invites the entire street to tea and biscuits. And Annie has various crises of confidence.
It’s an episode that’s really about working out where one fits in the world. What do I value? Who are my friends going to be? What does this say about me? It’s an episode that focuses outwards and not inwards; one that constructs character through social groupings. Is Mitch going to sleep with Lauren – which is to say, is he going to start feeding on humans again, start being a vampire again? Is George going to abandon his friends for Tully the werewolf – is he going to be predatory, creepy, isolated? You are what your friends are.
This approach feels very New Adult to me – YA but for 20-somethings. It’s about being thrown into the world, thrown into adult life, and having to work out what it’s going to look like. It’s scary – that’s why scary things happen to our characters, and it’s why they themselves are scary. Suddenly, they have power (OK, not that suddenly in Mitch’s case), and they have to learn what to do with it, and that’s kind of like being an adult: all of a sudden you have choices, and you have to work out what you’re going to do with them. This isn’t actually a show about vampires and werewolves and ghosts: it’s a show about growing up.
And, yeah, all of this is pretty transparent. It’s not a nuanced thing by any means. But it’s well-acted. It’s funny. It takes its own premise seriously. It has Aidan Turner. I’m quite happy to keep watching, all things considered.
The English Student 