Across the Universe:'Being Human'

By Don Kaye
Special to MSN TV

"Being Human" is one of the most successful programs ever launched on the Syfy network, and anticipation has been building for its third season ever since its second ended on a cliffhanger in April 2012. Based on the British program of the same name, the show tells the story of three Boston roommates -- Aidan (Sam Witwer), Josh (Sam Huntington) and Sally (Meaghan Rath) -- who happen to be a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost respectively. They attempt to live as "normally" as possible, all the while beset by other supernatural force , others of their kind and the problems of day-to-day life.

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Like many genre series, "Being Human" has amassed a small yet loyal cult following, and around 150 of them gathered at the Paley Center for Media in Los Angeles on Tuesday night (Jan. 8) for a special premiere screening of the third-season opener, "It's a Shame About Ray," followed by a question-and-answer session with Witwer, Huntington, Rath, Kristen Hager (who plays Josh's girlfriend, Nora) and executive producer/showrunner Anna Fricke.

We won't go into specifics about the episode itself (at the principals' request), but we can say it picks up the threads left dangling at the end of Season 2 and resolves many of them, with the three roommates on separate journeys for most of the hour. All four main cast members have settled comfortably into their parts by now, delivering the often witty dialogue (from Fricke and now-departed co-showrunner Jeremy Carver) with ease and crisp timing. The episode has its share of macabre imagery as well, with more than one decaying corpse filling the screen.

If the theme of Season 2 was "temptation," with all four main characters being led astray and into mortal danger, the central subtext of Season 3 is "be careful what you wish for," and that idea was very much on display in the opener. The concept was addressed several times in the follow-up question-and-answer session, although it was difficult for the moderator to get many straight answers: The four cast members joked incessantly among themselves, to the great amusement of the audience, while Fricke sat like a patient mother letting her children play.

Fricke did manage to get a few thoughts on the third season into the discussion, saying, "We really hit our stride this year and let this be the character season." Huntington agreed, hinting that after the supernatural fireworks of the season opener, "We settle down and get back into the house. We get a lot of the supernatural stuff out in the opener and then settle into our humanity a little bit after that."

Keeping the show's feet on the ground, so to speak, and not getting too deep into the supernatural weeds is part of its appeal, according to Witwer, who said, "The stories are more concerned with how we pay the rent than whether there's a war between the werewolves and the vampires ... with all the supernatural shows out there, we enjoy that we're the most grounded."

The floor was open to questions from the audience after 30 minutes or so, and one fan asked what the North American show's relationship and/or interactivity with the British series (which is now going into its fifth season) was like. The cast and crew had said previously that they did not watch the British show until after the North American one's first season had been completed. But everyone seemed more at ease now, with Witwer saying, "We feel like the characters are way different. We diverged in the story line for Season 2 and now have diverged even more in Season 3 ... now there's two great shows that fans can watch."

That certainly seems to be true, but right now we suspect that all eyes of the "Being Human" audience are focused on the North American edition, with Witwer summing it up by saying, "I'm very excited about the stuff we have coming up."

Season 3 of "Being Human" premieres Monday, Jan. 14 at 9 p.m. on Syfy.