h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm very close to being done with Being Human. Tonight was just awful - really awkward, really cringe-y and really uninteresting. The few good bits were swamped by all the crap.

I don't enjoy cringey, I don't find it enjoyable or entertaining and it's destroying the small amounts of drama they're managing to create. The vampire assault of Honolulu Heights should have felt climactic but it just didn't, mainly because Evil Reg Hollis has zero screen presence or menace. The 'joke' about the Real Hustle just made me wish the old gang were back. Also I hate the continuity announcer reading out tweets/messages over the credits with the heat of a thousand suns. For one the guy sounds like an arse and is sickeningly fanboyish and the comments are all suspiciously positive.

One more bad episode and I'm out. Looking at the trailer for next week it looks as though I'll be out sooner rather than later.

We're really diverging in opinions on this, aren't we?
I really don't see it as being that bad. In fact I thought the end of last nights was a nice way of tying it back to the original series. It had its funny moments and I'll agree I was expecting a little bit more from Hal the Old One in fight terms. Still, least he killed evil reg hollis, that was well deserved. And annoying goth chick - someone in the writting group used to hang out with goths I think

Don't get me wrong, it ain't perfect. But it is enjoyable.

Thinking about it, it seems to me that with such a major loss both in cast terms and in in-story character terms, they had to make the story so much bigger to be able to carry that loss. They couldn't feed such a change from within the group, it would have been too weak and not done the characters justice. So they had to 'go big' with it and then try and bring that scale back down to the individuals, which I think this last ep was probably the final part of.

Just catching up on my Being Human viewing, just watched "A spectre calls" - pretty dismal all the way through. I *do not enjoy* characters being manipulated and acting stupidly.

Still it picked up in the last third with Annie evaporating with some home-truths about how dull she is (here here) - and then we get super-power Annie going all Raiders of the last Ark (sort of) on Kirby.

So at long last a glimpse into what a super-powered up Annie can do (reminiscent also of her dispatch Kemp through the door in Series 2)

But it still feel all rather inconsequential and...episodic. )who will try to kill Eve next week? *yawn* *snooze*)

I am not sensing any great over-aching plot yet, and it still all a bit mediocre, sorry to say.

I liked the final third of A Spectre Calls but, as you say, I'm getting a bit tired of seeing how the stranger they invite in will try to kill Eve. They gave Annie nifty new powers and then went nowhere with them, yet again.

Last weeks with Adam was much stronger, almost as good as something from the first three series. I enjoyed the mystery over who/what the woman was, I enjoyed seeing Adam again and I enjoyed Hal. Adam's grief over the loss of Nina and George was really quite touching and they got the mixture of comedy and melodrama just right for the first time. Adam's scene at the glass door, talking about how in love he was with Yvonne(?) was Being Human at its best: it reminded me why I enjoy the show so much.

I really, really like Hal, he's far and away the best thing about the new series and it's great the way they've integrated him so easily without it seeming forced. His scene with Annie was pretty cool.

I'm really concerned that, 3 weeks before the series finale, they've done very little to advance the plot apart from inviting folk in to try and murder Eve. It feels like babysteps instead of running off to tell a story and expecting/trusting the audience to keep up.

Up until 40 mins in of A Spectre Calls I was giving up on BH, the last 20 mins convinced me to give it a reprieve and I'm glad I did. Let's see what tonight brings.

Just finished watching "Hold the front Page" I was coming here to say how much that felt like an episode of old school BH - and you beat me to it!

I thought the whole succubus and vampire taming the other was inspired bit of myth-mangling! And yes much better on the comedy vs melodrama.
The scene at the glass door with deformations - very cool. I wonder why we only saw him from her side and never her from his? The actress playing the succubus was perfect for it

I'm still not quite sold on Hal, some scenes I warm to him others I'm still a bit luke warm.

Like you I've been concerned that this has no story - which coming off the back of the end of series 3 still feels like 'who wrote this'

The preview of tonight's episode looks good so I'm hopeful...

This last one bored me and, again, the guest character just got on my nerves. That never happened in the past - they cast even the most minor characters beautifully - and it's quite jarring. She was just too cringey for me.

I've given up on expecting the writers to write Annie well: to be fair they haven't managed it since S1 so it's not a new failing but now she's primus inter pares of the 3 leads, it's more noticeable/problematic. I just don't believe that Annie who has been sweet, naive and caring would straight-up murder an innocent person

It was good to see the plot advance, the twists were somewhat predictable but enjoyable nonetheless. I'm coming around on Cutler: the last two episodes have been good for him and it'll be interesting to see what happens with/to him in the series finale.

The vampire head of operations and her entourage was a deus ex machina to get Cutler more to do / ingratiated with Tom. The whole "you set him up" scene vis a vis the warehouse was all a bit lame.

The whole Annie force-push murders the next-door neighbour thing was rather out of left field but tied in somewhat to the one little murder and it's addictive and annie's increasing super powers - things they been suggesting ever since the box tunnel massacre and Mitchell's decline and ever since with Hal's constant temptation. But yeah not really a good idea at all.

Cutler reminds me a little of the good ol' days of Herrick. I think it was Herrick himself actually who explained that being a vampire was like letting out the malevolent side in all of us to play and it becomes like a new normal to be duplicitous and cruel. So his little smirk at uploading the video (in last weeks denouement) reminded me of that: he's having fun.

This was a strange episode - all a bit of a tangent and inconsequential: we find out our boys are really hopeless when it comes to affairs of the heart which we didn't really care about to begin with. After 3 series I could at least buy in to Annie and Mitchell ("Daddy" "Jesus!") becuase that *was* well written - and it was the set up for the tragedy to come. These are flirtations destined to go nowhere. It's like The "b" team have taken over script writing and it's a boy's buddy movie about dating "girls" and pseudo drama about killing. Where's the pathos? I think the only really significant advance in terms of character development was the hint that Annie's unfinished business might not be "nice" (Maybe Owen will come back?)

Even with you-know-who turning up at the end and obviously a big part of the next episode, I'd still not call that a plot advance, although the preview would seem to intimate that we are now going to get somewhere with that. Better late than never, eh?

I know what you mean about the casting - it feels totally off the boil. Compare Evil Reg Hollis to Gilbert and his guilt or the ambitious police detective who Herrick killed after she arrested Mitchell or star turns by the likes of Robson Green (who I will freely admit surprised the hell out of me he was so good!) and the guy who played Ivan so perfectly.

This is without a doubt the worst series so far. Hellfire and Buggery!

Where has all this quality been hiding? That was excellent - on a par with the other series finales. I really enjoyed the stuff with Cutler and Hal, especially the juxtaposition of the two and the way they made me feel a real sympathy for Cutler. His plan was actually pretty damn clever with a real insight into the human mind.

Annie's stuff with Eve was beautiful and tragic, a combination BH has always done really well and I'm impressed they managed to live up to at least some of the promise they showed in the first ep, of a world gone to hell and the legend of Eve as the War Child. Seeing the history of the future really got to me and the fate of the three leads made a lot of sense. Eve telling Annie how she (the stuff of legends herself) had been brought up with the stories of George, Nina, Mitchell and all the others and her calling Annie 'Mum' hit hard as it reminded me of the S2 ep where she talked about wanting a family she could never have and how it felt like she was living life behind a glass wall. My only concern is that they're writing themselves into a corner with Eve: I really don't think I can cheer the death of a baby and I don't think Annie can take it either.

This episode was the first episode that felt like proper Being Human the whole way through (Adam's episode was close though) and they got the balance of humour, drama and heartbreak exactly right. I'm feeling that odd mixture of excitement and dread that I should feel before a Being Human finale.

This is going to come across as completely contradictory because that was excellent but I'm done with Being Human. It's been wonderful but its race has run.

I'm really pleased they went the whole hog with the War Child storyline up to and including Eve's death. I'm impressed (and also somewhat concerned) with how they made me feel good about the death of a child but I guess that's the strength of BH's mythology. The twist that Mr Snow had the third piece of the prophecy and wanted Eve to live was clever and actually made a lot of sense. Similarly, even though it was a relatively throwaway line, I liked how they explained Eve's ability to show Annie the future: it was Eve's past and behind The Door, people can visit the past. It highlighted just how well-written and how well thought out the episode was, the attention to detail.

All three of the new trio were excellent and their stories made a lot of sense. Hal has been superb and I thought they did a great job of making him a very different beast to Mitchell and a lot more like Ivan. Tom's arc was heartbreaking, the dilemma between being like McNair and like Milo. I was disappointed with him choosing Milo but it made perfect sense because they built it well.

As for why I'm done with Being Human - I had a building sense of dread as I watched them develop Alex's character, learning ghastly tricks from Annie and as Annie approached The Door I was pleading for her not to pass over. They haven't finished Annie's story, they never developed her properly and that's a huge shame. She went out with a bang, which was cool, and I'v decided she went through and saw George and Nina so she got a happy ending. Although Tom and Hal have been great and I was warming to Alex, I'm just not interested in Being Human without any of the original quartet. There was something very special in the chemistry between the original cast and that just hasn't been replicated. I also don't think there's a story to be told as the stuff with the Men in Grey, apart from being contradicted by four series worth of story, wasn't very interesting.

So thanks Mr Whithouse, but I'm taking my leave now.

Just caught up.

I agree with pretty much all of wrote above.