Our Daily Beard – 04/02/13
Being Human Returns!
Great. I’m a little torn on this series now. It has lost, along with its entirely starting cast, a lot of its punch. What made the first and second series great was the perfect balance of comedy and drama, erring just slightly on the comedy side in order to offset the inherent daftness of the setting- a werewolf, vampire and ghost living together.
I mean, the whole point is the daft. Put supernatural creatures into a banal everyday world, having to live together and go to the shops and drink lots of tea. Occasionally swing from humour to drama when the reality of such a juxtaposition hits home- the pressure of trying to be normal, the inevitable violence. The nature of evil gets explored while telling stupid jokes, as the dark deeds of the monsters are mirrored by those of the human world. It’s a pretty old concept: who are the real monsters?
But something went wrong. It got too serious, because of something I call sequel syndrome, which applies to TV shows as much as movies. They have to up the ante and make each series more dramatic than the last, with the stakes (hoho) rising exponentially.
Series One: Three spooky things living together in Bristol, lolz. Some kind of threat from an organisation of vampires (it’s suggested that they want to take over the world but I felt that this was somewhat tongue in cheek due to the location).
Series Two: Now we’ve got a human religious organisation hurting supernatural creatures. Great- turn it on its head, lots of danger, marvellous. Oh, and a main character falls off the blood wagon. Does he go mad and kill someone?! Not just that, he actually commits a massacre. A proper massacre with piles of bodies. Wait a minute- that escalated unbelievably quickly didn’t it? Yes.
Series Three: The cops are hot on Mitchell’s trail, because of the atrocity. It’s okay, because he’s sad about it. Great for a torturous moral drama, but in a comedy setting, it somewhat upsets the apple cart and becomes a boring waiting room for the next funny. Bad guy returns. Okay, at least the ante isn’t being upped too much. Oops, yes it is, the Antediluvians are here to kick off. They’ve somehow heard of the antics of one vampire in Wales and they want to do evil. So now we’re dealing with the oldest, most evil vampires of all. Of all. Somehow.
Series Four: The old ones or elders or whatever are about. Uhoh! What do they want? To take over the world. No, I’m not kidding, actual world domination, with hints of a dark future. Ante = pretty much as high as it can get. Is this meant to be a bit tongue in cheek, what with BH being a comedy drama? By Odin’s eye patch, I hope so. Right, well, we can prevent the end of the world, it’s like… ironic, or something. These few nobodies having to deal with the fate of the human race; it’s funny, even if it is presented so seriously that it overshoots deadpan by a mile.
Series Five: The Devil.
Yep. What’s going to be in series six, aliens?! Will there be a zombie apocalypse? I literally cannot thing of higher stakes than the source of all evil. It’s still funny, but it’s losing any trace of charm.
Like my girlfriend said: what’s next, God Goes Rogue?
[sociable]