Being Human

So, a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost decide to rent a house in Bristol, England, and live together. That's not the beginning of a joke, it's the set-up for a BBC TV series called BEING HUMAN. We've just watched the first season, which is only six episodes, on DVD, and it's very, very good. This is one of those rare series that manages to mix laugh-out-loud humor, poignant drama, and fairly gory horror action into a very effective blend. Aidan Turner as the vampire Mitchell, Russell Tovey as the werewolf George, and Lenora Critchlow as the ghost Annie are all very good, as is the supporting cast, which includes Jason Watkins as a really despicable villain, the leader of a group of vampires who are out to take over the world. The series starts out with what you'd think would be a fairly small scale, but by the end of the six episodes it's taken on an epic feel that really has me looking forward to the next season. In fact, there's so much packed into these stories that it seems like there are more than six episodes in the first season. I've heard that they're making an Americanized version of this. I don't see how it could possibly be as good, but I suppose I'll probably give it a try. In the meantime, this original version of BEING HUMAN gets a high recommendation from me.

Merlin

I posted about the recent ROBIN HOOD movie the other day, so to go from one British legend to another . . . We’ve been watching the first season of the BBC series MERLIN on DVD and just finished it up. Like ROBIN HOOD, MERLIN takes considerable liberties with the traditional version of the legend. In this one, Merlin isn’t a wise old wizard but rather a young man struggling to come to grips with the powers he possesses, while living in a kingdom where magic has been banned by its ruler, Uther Pendragon. Merlin winds up working as a servant for Uther’s son, Prince Arthur, and discovers that there’s a dragon – the last of the dragons – chained up in a cavern underneath Uther’s castle. The dragon, who talks and sounds just like John Hurt, informs Merlin that his destiny is to protect Arthur and insure that he becomes a great king. And from that set-up, off we go adventuring, as various threats to Camelot crop up and have to be dealt with, mostly by Merlin who has to keep his powers a secret, otherwise Uther will have him killed as an evil magician.


There are a lot of special effects, nothing really fancy but reasonably good most of the time, considerable sword-fighting (always a plus in my book), and a few hints of romance. In this version, Morgan le Fey is Morgana, Uther’s ward and the daughter of one of the king’s old friends who died in battle, and Guiniviere is Morgana’s maid. Arthur is a well-meaning but somewhat dense young knight. At times the mostly young and pretty cast make this come off almost like CAMELOT 90210 (yes, I know that’s a cheap shot), but I got caught up in the storylines and wound up enjoying the series quite a bit. The writing is okay, and the cast does a good job, especially Anthony Head (who was Giles in BUFFY, THE VAMPIRE SLAYER) as Uther, taking a basically unsympathetic character and giving him some depth.


I believe our friend Gary Dobbs, proprietor of The Tainted Archive, is in either this season or the second one, which hasn’t come out yet on DVD. I looked from him in these episodes but didn’t see him. This gives me another reason to watch Season Two when it’s released, but I probably would have anyway. MERLIN is decent fantasy adventure, and if you’re a fan of that genre, it’s worth watching.

TV Cop Show Weekend

I'm taking part in the big TV Cop Show Weekend on The Tainted Archive.  You can head over there to check out my comments on SHERIFF OF COCHISE, a series some of you may remember, and be sure to check out all the other posts while you're there.

Of Twerps and Gorgons

I don't recall if I've posted this before, but whether I have or not, it's still great stuff. When I was a kid, I had absolutely no idea that Gorgon, the host of Nightmare Theater, and wacky kids' show host Icky Twerp were the same guy.

Rome

A while back Livia and I watched the first season of the HBO series ROME on DVD. We just finished watching the second and final season, and overall I liked it quite a bit. I can just imagine the pitch meeting for the series: "It's like DEADWOOD, only in ancient Rome!" There's certainly plenty of sex, violence, and cussin' in ROME. And most of the characters have British accents, so you know they're real ancient Romans.

We've been a fan of this sort of stuff since we watched I, CLAUDIUS on PBS back in the Seventies. (That's a series we ought to revisit on DVD, if we could find the time.) We even wrote a mystery story with Claudius as the detective. ("The Singer at Dawn", in the October 1980 issue of MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE.) ROME isn't all that accurate historically, but it tells compelling stories nonetheless and is very well-acted, especially by Kevin McKidd and Ray Stevenson as a couple of Roman soldiers who wind up being on hand for most of the historical events and even playing pivotal parts in some of them. Also like DEADWOOD, there's plenty of purely fictional soap opera to go with the pseudo-history.

I enjoyed ROME and was sorry to see it end after only two seasons. I've heard that the new series SPARTACUS is a lot like it, only with more sex and violence (hard to imagine). I'm sure we'll give it a try, too, when it comes out on DVD.

Bronco

I've had the theme song from this old TV show stuck in my head for days. Ever since I got rid of the theme from NAVAJO JOE, in fact. My hope is that if I pass it along to some of you and get it stuck in your heads, it'll leave me alone.

Birthday

Yesterday was my 54th birthday, and I celebrated by vegetating pretty much all day. The only work I did was some research reading. But what you really want to know about is the swag I got, right? In addition to some clothes and a battery-powered lamp (for when the electricity goes off, as it does several times each year, minimum), I got boxed DVD sets of all three seasons of KUNG FU, a series that has a lot of nostalgia value for me since it was a Really Big Thing while I was in college; the first season of BOSOM BUDDIES, a fine sitcom; and the new collector’s edition of ISLAND IN THE SKY, which is one of the very few John Wayne movies I’ve never seen. Maybe the only one. I mean, I’ve even watched the serials THE THREE MUSKETEERS and THE SHADOW OF THE EAGLE.

Now all I have to do is find the time to watch all that stuff.