Music, Style & Culture

Why You Should Be Watching Being Human

What reason do we have to stick with Being Human?

The time is almost upon us. Sunday February 5th sees the long anticipated return to Honolulu Heights. The return to the cosy bosom of our four supernatural friends. The return to a fractured group, in mourning and coping with a very special baby born of werewolves. Eh?

Where are the laughs? Where’s the cheeky banter between Mitchell, George, Nina and Annie? Where are the biscuits and the episodes of The Real Hustle?

Misery. That’s what we’ve got to look forward to. Misery. Mitchell is gone. Lovely, handsome, serial killing vampire Mitchell is no more. No longer will we hear his dulcet Irish tones. No longer will he slope about in Steptoe and Son finger-less gloves and sexy boots. No longer will he rip the throat out of some nubile lovely. He’s dead and gone. Unable to live on with his animal instincts and his raging guilt, in one of television’s most beautifully played moments, filled with forgiveness, pathos and eventual peace, our favourite tortured blood-sucker met his maker and broke our hearts. "Farewell Mitchell", we blubbered, "farewell and please be replaced by a charismatic, sexy, posh vampire."

Sadly for fans there’s no respite from the gut wrenching end of Series 3, for Nina has apparently shuffled off this mortal coil – off screen and presumably due to squeezing out her literal puppy – and our beloved George (the incomparable Russell Tovey) is set to follow though, with luck, he’ll leave the show in one piece.

So then, why should we watch Series 4? Mitchell is gone. Nina is gone and George is leaving.

Please read our handily numbered reasons as to why Being Human is still worth your time:

1. Hal. The new vampire on the block.
500 years old and lo! He happens to be off “the sauce” and best friends with a ghost and werewolf. Sounds familiar..... Described as posh and initially stand off-ish, he’s also a bit of vampire totty. Not that we’re shallow or anything....

2. Tom the naive, vampire killing werewolf.
Regular viewers already know Tom. The feral werewolf made his debut in Series 3 and This Is England actor Michael Socha instils a sense of sweetness and longing in the character along with a healthy dose of badass-ary . Tom and Hal are set to be at logger heads initially but we sense a beautiful bromance on the horizon.

3. Lord Toby Whithouse. The Creator
Being Human God, Whithouse, hasn’t let the side down so far and he’s certainly not one to shy away from death, destruction and shocks. But beneath the emotional and literal debris, Whithouse remains true to the real appeal of the show, the humanness and desire to belong. He celebrates the mundanity of everyday life and the dynamics of sharing a house.

4. The “old ones.” The new big bad.
No not the adorable granny that lives down your road but the ancient, feared vampires who are amassing to take control of the world. Spoken about at the end of Series 3 and with George, Annie and Nina vowing to stop them, they’re still something of a mystery to viewers but we are promised that they will feature heavily in Series 4, where they have plans for George’s werewolf baby daughter. In fact, episode 1 opens with a flash forward of twenty-five years where the vampires rule. Consider our breeches to be soiled.

5. Annie. It’s always Annie.
The heart and soul of Being Human. For a ghost she has grown an awful lot over the course of the three series. We’ve seen her go from girlfriend in denial to the realisation that her fiancé was the cause of her death. She’s had a job – in Bristol’s lamest pub – she’s sacrificed herself for her friends and been trapped in purgatory and she’s fallen in love with a vampire who can never truly love her back as he can’t love himself. Profound no? Annie‘s maternal instincts will be put to good use with the arrival of George and Nina’s werewolf baby (it does not get boring typing that) and with new housemates she’ll surely get to display those well honed tea-making skills.

Add some stellar guest stars in the form of the brilliant Craig Roberts, reprising his role as pithy teenage vampire Adam, Alex Jennings as the head of a new vampire coven and Ron Weasley’s Dad Mark Williams as a “vampire recorder" (yeah we don't know either) and frankly you have no excuse not to watch.

Being Human returns to BBC Three on Sunday February 5th at 9pm.