Being Human: Season 1

Everyone has had a crappy roommate before — someone who plays their music too loud at all hours of the night, eats your food even if it's clearly marked and hits on your boyfriend or girlfriend. You think you have it rough? Try rooming with a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost. That’s the case for Syfy’s adaptation of the BBC hit “Being Human.”

“Being Human” is the story of Aidan (Sam Witwer), Josh (Sam Huntington) and Sally (Meaghan Rath), three twentysomething roommates, each with their own baggage. Aidan, a centuries-old recovering vampire and Josh, a med-school dropout werewolf, move in together to try and regain some kind of humanity that they have lost. Unfortunately, they get more than they bargained for when they realize that their new house is haunted by the carefree ghost Sally. The three supernatural friends try to keep each other on the straight and narrow despite the occasional slip-up, but Aidan’s sire has other plans.

I have seen the British version of “Being Human” and was a big fan, so I was very skeptical when Syfy decided to make an American version. Except for a select few, there aren’t many American remakes that hold up to their counterparts. But Witwer, Huntington and Rath do such an amazing job at doing justice to the original characters and bringing something completely different as well.

Witwer is great as Aidan, a recovering vampire trying to go cold turkey off human blood who has an ability to be straitlaced but, at the flip of a switch, become someone so devious and villainous. My sympathy for Aidan grew with each episode because of Witwer’s performance.

Huntington is probably my favorite character because he brings the most to Josh. His character is sort of the Jiminy Cricket of the group. He tries so hard to ground the group and firmly grasp on to their humanity, and Huntington brings so much pain to these moments that it's heartbreaking when a perilous moment jeopardizes them. Rath is very much the spirit of the group, pun intended. She is great as Sally, the tortured soul. She brings so much life to her resident spirit.

One of the other things that I loved about this series is that they took their time to tell the story. Much of the storyline follows the British version pretty closely but is allotted more time to do so and it is a huge plus. Viewers are allowed to get to know their characters and dig deeper into their tragic stories. One of the most tragic storylines is “The End of the World as We Knew It.” In this episode, the history of what happened to Josh comes to light when someone in his life has more to do with his past than he was aware. It was probably one of the smartest episodes of the season.

“Being Human” is a smart and edgy story with plenty of spirit and bite. Okay, I’m done with the puns, so please no angry comments. I would highly recommend this show as an alternative to the sappy, poorly written, “Twilight” movies.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much as far as special features on the Blu-ray release — a few featurettes and interviews with the cast.

Season 4.5 Yaps Extras: 2 Yaps