The Show
Arriving promptly on Blu-ray following its Winter 2011 premiere on BBC America, Being Human Season Three (not to be confused with its stateside remake) picks up right where we left off, as the legacy of the Box Tunnel 20 Massacre continues to play out for our four core characters. As you may recall, vampire Mitchell (Aidan Turner) went blood-wild and killed quite a lot of innocent commuters, shortly before ghost Annie (Lenora Crichlow) was banished from this world, relegated to communicating via the TV. (Pop culture references such as this, to Poltergeist, remain subtle and brilliant.)
Everything begins to change however when Mitchell crosses over to The Other Side to bring Annie back, a trip that takes us into his head as never before, and her gratitude takes on an unexpected enthusiasm. Werewolves/lovers George and Nina (Russell Tovey and Sinéad Keenan), meanwhile, are getting along perhaps a bit too well, and soon they might just have a cub on the way. Amidst it all the gang has taken over a rundown bed and breakfast in Wales, attracting new "monsters," old enemies and more consequences than one of them can handle. Maybe being human isn't such a sweet gig after all.
The Picture
The eight one-hour episodes are spread across three BD-50 discs, affording a generous bitrate for the VC-1 video. The 16:9 image is 1080i@60Hz, perhaps owing to the conversion from British standards, but the quality is excellent, with a tad of flicker in panning shots and rare video noise on difficult geometric textures, but otherwise exceptionally clean and detailed, particularly for TV-on-Blu-ray. Color and contrast remain strong in the many low-lit scenes, and blacks are usually deep and natural.
The Sound
What is this, 1998? As with Season Two, the audio here is presented in mere Dolby Digital 2.0 format. It's a respectable mix, with the music wafting in and out of scenes appropriately, but without a high-resolution, dedicated center channel, the heavily-accented dialogue can be difficult to understand, to the point that the subtitles might need to be engaged just so we can keep up. There's sufficient action to warrant a multichannel soundtrack, and this isn't DVD after all, so why settle for Dolby Digital? Again?
The Extras
Seven deleted scenes from across the season are collected on the third disc, with little markers to indicate where they belonged. They run a total of twelve minutes. Twenty-two minutes of cast interviews are grouped by the four lead actors, speaking on a variety of character-based topics. And the charming Sinéad Keenan returns to give us a five-minute tour of the new house set where much of Season Three was filmed. All of these extras are in HD.
Final Thoughts
Much of this show's appeal lies in the writers' ability to find the absurd humor in the fantastical subject matter, even while the characters' hearts are breaking, a juggling act sold exquisitely by a magnificent cast. I do wish that this set embraced more of what Blu-ray has to offer, but by the last episode I was too invested to complain, as in the final moments the gang sets up a potentially huge Season Four.
Product Details
Where to Buy:
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| Video | |
| Audio | |
| Movie | |
| Extras |
