Being Human (UK): "Eve of the War" Review

The only thing more shocking than Being Human's third season finale was the news that trickled out since it aired.
Before we'd had a chance to (manfully) wipe the (even manlier) tears caused by Mitchell's tragic death-cum-vampiricide, Russell Tovey (George) and Sinead Keenan (Nina) announced they too had up and quit.

So, with three of your four main characters either gone or on the way out, and only one original cast member remaining, where does Being Human go from here?

Season Four's opening episode may not provide a resolute answer, but with drama, heart, horror and humour, it positively points to the series continuing in the only way it knows how.

SPOILERS AHEAD...

Eve of the War packed more into its 57 minutes than most British dramas manage in 57 episodes. Its futuristic 2037-set prelude - in which a small band of resistance fighters struggled to survive in a world overrun by vampires - set the bewildering scene, and things only became more breathless from there.

It may have only been a manner of weeks since George staked Mitchell and laid his claim to taking on the vampire bigwigs, but a lot had changed. Mainstay Nina and Big Bad in the making Wyndham had both been murdered off-camera, leaving Annie distraught, desolute George a single parent manically driven to protect his as-yet-unnamed baby, and
Tom (you remember, the werewolf gypsy with the Sam the Eagle eyebrows) having firmly established himself as a cafe serving boy by day and an ass-kicking vampire-vanquishing vigilante (Fluffy the Vampire Slayer?) by night.

And that's all before we even get started on an entirely new parallel and self-contained plot introducing new vamp on the scene Hal, the new NEW Big Bads (including the amusingly dry, progressive-thinking vampire Cutler), and the tantalising tease that George and Nina's baby is 'The Chosen One' and the vampire race's very own gurgling, incontinent and utterly adorable Armageddon in the making.

Oh, and there was the small matter of George's franchise-shattering death, too.


By opening with the narrative double whammy of a landscape-altering, mythology-bolstering flash-forward and the devastating, off-camera killing off of yet another main character, Eve of the War cleverly skipped over the Mitchell-shaped elephant in the room. Writer Toby Whithouse chucked so many jaw-dropping twists into the first five minutes that you were instantly transfixed by the possibilities of what's to come as opposed to weepily wallowing in the past.

Thankfully, while there was deliciously dark drama in abundance (the baby-napping, George's harrowing description of Nina's unheroic death, and that shocker of a finale didn't exactly offer LOLs galore), Whithouse ensured Eve of the War was infused with the pithy, irreverent humour fans have come to know and love. From Annie's Scrabble-PWNing new vocabulary ("TWATTAGE") to the makeshift Werepup cage and the introduction of the Magna Carta with Nipples, it's clear that even if it's haemorraghing actors, Season Four should at least retain its sense of humour.

While the Tom and Annie dynamic is already entertaining and Hal's fleeting, tangential backstory promises a relatable hook, it was George's heart-wrenching departure that simultaneously stole the show and truly wiped the slate clean. It's arguable that Russell Tovey was the beating heart and whimpering werewolf soul of the series, and while he went out in style (breaking pretty much every mythology rule to save his newborn), fans will have a grudgingly hard job accepting his departure.

Still, if Misfits taught us anything, it's that saying goodbye to your breakout talent isn't enough to derail British drama that's original, innovative and clever enough to creatively roll with the punches.

Considering its Season Four opener pulled off a plot that was equal parts Terminator, Twilight and Buffy, introduced a whole new mythology and main cast, and STILL managed to be both coherent and captivating, it has the potential to pull off the resurrection its original characters, sadly, never will.

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