Trivia / Being Human (UK)

• Actor-Shared Background: Annie, like Lenora Crichlow, is mixed race, with a black father and white mother.
• Fake Brit: Irish actress Sinead Keenan as Nina.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: A few pretty significant examples:
  • The Pilot episode was aired on BBC Three but never made it to the DVD releases nor was ever repeated after the first week it aired.
  • The documentary Being Human Unearthed, which aired after the first series, aired once on BBC Three and has never been released on DVD.
  • The spin-off Becoming Human was released in eight parts online and aired as a 50-minute compilation. There was no DVD release and the episode videos have disappeared from the Becoming Human website.
  • The Being Human blog is full of great content, often in the form of videos that add to the show, explain back story and character, or are fun and interesting. Good luck finding this stuff on the official DVDs. For now, it can still be found on The BBC blog or on YouTube.
• Killed by Request: Mitchell, the vampire protagonist of the first three series, was staked through the heart in the final episode of series 3, which also established that staking would destroy a vampire so thoroughly that there could be no possibility of them resurrecting. Reportedly, this was because Mitchell's actor, Aidan Turner, had a scheduling conflict between the show and filming for The Hobbit, and had asked to be killed off in a way which meant he wouldn't be expected to return.
• Star-Making Role: The series really helped launch the career of Aidan Turner, who went on to star in The Hobbit and Poldark.
• The Other Marty: Two-thirds of the main cast (Annie and Mitchell) got recast between the pilot and the main series, as did Herrick and Lauren.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The pilot, one of several shown to promote the relaunch of BBC3. Annie was a lot more housebound (the first subplot would have been her trying to fight this), the vampires would have worn suits and driven limos, rather than hiding in plain sight, Annie's fiancée did not own the house, and the comedy was slightly more camp. Not necessarily better or worse, but certainly different.
    • The scene where Mitchell and George discover Annie in the house was reshot with Aidan Turner and Lenora Crichlow but cut during editing. Presumably it would have opened the second series finale which is the only episode from that series not to open with a flashback.
  • The original concept of the series was about a recovering sex addict, someone with intermittent explosive disorder, and an agoraphobic; the supernatural twist was added after the showrunners found the mundane version too bland. The vampires were more professional and upper-class, led by a business suit-wearing, good-humoured Mickey Bricks, and had private get-togethers in expensive restaurants, reminiscing good-naturedly about being testaments of history. And how they're going to take over the world with blood and fang.

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