Supernatural Drama Being Human is Back for Series 5: Your First Look
If you think that feels like a reboot, well, you’re probably right. Given the strange limbo feeling of last season, which tried its best to mix the old and the new Being Human together and threw in an apocalypse on top, it’s a move that’s probably for the best. It’s still a pretty big change to take in though, especially for those of us who’ve been here since Series 1. It’s going to take some adjusting. However, in the good news department, Phil Davis, formerly of Whitechapel and Sherlock, joins the cast as new
(fairly disgusting) bad guy Captain Hatch. The first full trailer for Series 5 has also just arrived and even skeptical me has to admit that it looks pretty good. Here’s hoping!
It’s unclear whether Being Human will remain must-see television now that we’ve officially lost all the original cast members. Aidan Turner, Russell Tovey and Leonora Crichlow are a hard act to follow and though I love the show, sometimes it’s hard not to look at Molony and Socha (the jury’s still out on Bracken for me and for most I imagine) and think longingly of the original roommates. Occasionally I also miss the original tone of the show, which was less about mythology and the threat of apocalypse and more about what “being human” meant when it was just about three offbeat people trying to figure out where they belonged in the world and those people just happened to all be supernatural beings of some stripe. Yes, the scope was smaller, but in some ways it felt like a fresher concept.
This isn’t to say that the potential storylines for this season of Being Human are uninteresting – and it remains to be seen how the dynamic between our three leads will shake out now that we’re past the half-new/half-old limbo of Series 4. But the inclusion of the “He will rise” tagline, as well as a few early plot hints certainly makes it seem as as though we’re still keeping the heavy mythology angle, which has the potential to be quite tiresome, in my opinion. (If only because every other sci-fi show does this.) But, at the very least I’ll still give it a look and see how it goes.
Being Human returns to BBC Three beginning February 9. No word yet on when we can expect a BBC America transmission, but previous seasons would indicate that we won’t have to wait more than a month or so at most. Will be interested to see it! What say you, folks? Have you warmed up to the new kids on the Being Human block?
