Being Human Season Two

Vampire shows tend to fall into two categories: campy dramedies with occasional moments of angst, and brooding Gothic romances with occasional moments of humor. The first season of the BBC’s Being Human fell somewhere in between; the second season is firmly planted in the latter. For good or ill, the strength of the show—and season two in particular—is its character development. A sort of British Joss Whedon, creator and lead writer Toby Whithouse has used the trio’s journey toward humanity to highlight everything that’s not working in the world, though with a strong, almost fanatical focus on the evils of religion in the form of the aforementioned (and ultimately useless) Professor Kemp and his lackey, Lucy Jaggat. It’s all a bit reminiscent of Whedon’s failed Dollhouse, but without the annoying cheesecake and heavy-handed “we are greater than the sum of our parts” claptrap.