It was a comedy-drama about a group of three friends who share a house: so far so Friends, except that they are, from left to right, a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost.
Delightful (and out gay) actor Russell Tovey played the werewolf with considerable (and endearing) self-effacement and charm. But he now has a rival in this role since Being Human has now been Remade For US TV:
I confess, I have not yet seen a single episode. But my appetite has been whetted by the presence of the enigmatically named Sam Witwer as the vampire:
He's one of those deliciously conflicted post-Buffy vampires, where they've gone all respectable and only drink blood from blood banks (hence his day-job in a hospital comes in handy):
I've only seen him in action once before, when he played a wannabe serial killer in Dexter (a role he played deliciously) -- although even in that grungy role it was impossible to disguise how beautiful he really is (I don't have any photos from that, so you'll have to make do with this):
His English counterpart is swarthier, long-haired and dashing. And, like all good vampires, exuding hairy-chested sexual charisma (are you listening, Twilight people...?):
Playing the Russell Tovey role, if I may call it that, is Sam Huntington:
But wait a minute -- alarm bells are now clanging furiously. That's presumably a scene where he's woken up after a hard night's werewolfery, and yet... he's still wearing his pants!
Goddamnit, why are the Americans so prissy? Here's Russell giving us the same morning-after scene:
It's not as if Sam has anything hideous to cover-up: here he is in a scene from 2004 film Freshman Orientation (originally released under the truly revolting title of Home of Phobia...):
In that film -- which, I confess, is surprisingly watchable. Almost top-notch teen crud, in fact -- Sam is put into a drunken stupor by the Frat house he's trying to pledge, and they gently put him to sleep in the middle of the campus, all romantic music playing and with another pledge (his roommate) snuggled up to him. Where he wakes up in horror the next morning, horrified that his image as a straight stud has been utterly destroyed:
For what it's worth, his roommate turns out to be a closet case who is in love with Sam's straight student (who is playing gay in order to get closer to a sorority girl who... No, you can rent it for yourself). I'll just say that his roommate, played by the delightful Mike Erwin (who, coincidentally, gave us a fantastic naked arse shot in Dexter), is lovely, and one of the most heart-warming studies of unrequited love I've seen for a long time. Very human, in fact.
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