Before Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight I was a huge fan of fantastical
vampire stories, even to the point where I read most of Anne Rice’s work and eventually
found Brian Lumley. His Necroscope series
has a number of focuses as the series moves forward, but amazingly ruthless
vampires thousands of years old appear throughout. That being said I believe I have a high
standard for one of the more ruthless types of characters in the literary
world.
In the recent years a slew of vampire based movies, TV shows
and other mediums have saturated the market making vampires almost passé. Having said this I was hesitant to check out
a new TV series, SyFy’s Being Human.
This story focus’ around the lives of Josh and Aiden, a recently turned
werewolf and a 300 year old vampire respectively, as well as the newly deceased
resident of their apartment, Sally. From
this interesting premise, the show tries to look at what exactly does it take
to try and have a normal life amidst the temptations, fear, and unknowing surrounding
the characters.
Being Human has a very basic premise but the great thing is
that they do not sugarcoat everything with the drippy, long winded concepts of
lust and sappy vampire drama made famous by so many others. These characters play real people trying to
deal with what they are, being a ‘vegetarian’ vampire by not eating live people
and those repercussions, dealing with the transformation into the wolf that
takes place every month, or trying to cope with your own tragic death.
Being Human is a great show and another one of my total nerd
indulgences. It shows supernatural
beings at their rawest, trying to cope with what they are, not lusting around
trying to make a decision on whom they should marry or be with. The show is now
winding down to the season 2 finale, so anyone who has some free time, I recommend
taking some time to get hooked to this great show.
I haven't checked it out yet. I was into the original UK version and lost track. Have you seen it? Call me bias, but I was angry when I heard SyFy was developing an American version; the network has a history of having poorly developed shows and I felt they would ruin the show. Maybe, I should give their version a chance.
ReplyDeleteI'm not into the whole vampire thing, but have you seen previews for the new Tim Burton movie with Johny Depp? I think THAT actually looks interesting (mostly because it goes back to Dracula-style vampires rather than the modern "human" looking vampires).
ReplyDeleteYou know, I get a bit sensitive when everyone quickly harps on how ridiculous the whole vampire thing is. Personally, I really enjoyed reading the Twilight series and other series like that. It is obviously not something to read if you are looking to gain some educational crumb, but it is a good enough read.
ReplyDeleteYou can call me sensitive.
I've seen the UK version and loved it. The whole vampire craze was annoying me until I saw the 1992 Dracula starring Gary Oldman recently. That movie really made me respect good vampire entertainment again.
ReplyDeleteMy personal favorite vampire story was, "Interview with a vampire" I still have yet to read the book but if you haven't seen it yet I highly recommend it!
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