Review: Being Human 1.4

Mitchell guides Lauren away from Bernie.

"We're deluding ourselves, here. Thinking we could ever be accepted by normal human beings."

I know what you're thinking, reader. This is a Brian Dooley script, the man who brought the world BDSM vampire orgies in a 9:00 slot on BBC Three. This review is going to be one of the most biased I've ever done, right? Right? Well, Dooley certainly has his problems, but a good reviewer approaches his media with fresh eyes. Not that looking on it with fresh eyes improves this episode in any way...
   Mitchell gets focus for a change, this time showing a caring side. After a cold-open monologue talking about self-identity, he protects a child, Bernie, from bullies. Father figure absent, the boy's mother allows Mitchell to take him bowling and take him to see films. While they're interrupted once by Lauren, who's singing the praises of the vampire world, everything is going swimmingly. In an attempt to show Bernie the wisdom of Laurel and Hardy, Bernie accidentally picks up Lauren's Vampire Porn and the resulting furore has Mitchell and George branded "peedos". Annie and George are appropriately pissed at Mitchell for even keeping the DVD. When Bernie tries to visit the house, a mob tries to kill Mitchell, but when the boy is knocked down by a car Mitchell helps him get to hospital. Mitchell tells his mother about vampires and promises that he can save her little boy - as long as she lets Mitchell turn him into a vampire. And... well... she does so. Creepy. Anyway, we wave goodbye to  and we never hear from him again. Pissed off at Humans, Mitchell heads back to the Mortuary and announces he's rejoining the Vampire Masterplan.
     It's nice that Mitchell gets a starring role again, but Bernie, like most child characters in low-budget dramas, is twee and annoying. The character's end felt unnecessary and it would have made a much bigger statement to have the boy simply die; not because of any malice on my part, but because it would make more sense considering what Mitchell does next.
     George meanwhile is worrying about whether Nina won't like him now he isn't sexing her up with the power of the moon, but she soon admits that she's glad that he wants to take it slow and be romantic. However, after the mob starts their assault, George tries to break it of with Nina, taking into consideration the risk he's putting her in with his lycanthropothy. She isn't having it, and turns up outside his egg-stained door. She assumes that he's a peadophile, but he explains that there's other stuff going on. She storms off. After Bernie is hit, George seeks out Nina's comfort, where she reveals to him her "secret" - she has horriffic burns on her stomach from when she was a child.

Mitchell tries to hold back his hunger for blood.

     George took more of a back seat this week, and that helped his character a bit, but it had a few good moments for the fast- developing Nina too. Annie meanwhile felt like a footnote, her main moments coming during a visit by Owen, where she became a poltergeist and started unintentionally destroying things. At the end, she destroyed her photos of Owen and mvoed on, becoming more powerful in the process as well as visible to everyone. This is a key part of her character and it sets the scene for the penultimate episode, which forms part of the finale.
     For George and Annie, this week's episode felt straight on target, while Mitchell seems to have missed by a few inches or so. On the whole it wasn't in any way unpleasant, but there were little problems here or there that stained the copy-book, making a watchable episode a litle more irritating. And yes, while it isn't as blatantly terrible as Dooley's later contribution, there are still the seeds of things to come (vampires' adverse sexual behaviours, a teenage vampire). It needed a quick buff to get rid of the creases, one that I hope will be apparrent as the first series' finale roles upon us.

Thanks.