TV REVIEW: FTN review Being Human (UK) S05E04 The Greater Good

Being Human S05E04
The Greater Good

With only two episodes left you’d think Being Human would be building up to it’s finale with gusto, but this episode feels more like a mid-season filler episode with very little connection to the main plot. It’s not a bad episode by any means; it’s just, like last week, feels like we’re treading old ground.

I’m getting a little sick and tired of Hal’s constant back and forth between his good and evil side. I feel like it’s been bandied about far too much of late. Perhaps if this season had been eight episodes instead of the truncated six, the changes wouldn’t seem quite so jarring, but we’ve had three episodes out of the four aired so far this year where Hal has flip flopped from good to bad in the space of the hour. The plot with Crumb and his attempt at redemption is interesting, but we’ve seen it all before and better with Mitchell (Now, I’m not one to moan about how the show ‘isn’t the same’ with the new characters. It’s not, but that’s a good thing. Shows that go on for this long need to evolve, but I just wish they wouldn’t go over the same stories we’ve had previously).

Unfortunately Alex, like Annie before her, isn’t given a great deal to do besides just be there as a foil for the other characters. And also we’re now presented with the vampire/ghost romance that we had before with…guess who? Mitchell and Annie. Its fine that they’re throwing them together but it’s becoming almost a cliché that the two most well adjusted characters MUST get together at some point. Why can’t they just stay friends? Is that really a dramatic dead end? I think not.

Tom’s story is rather sweet, which tends to be the norm with his stories. This week he’s charged with looking after another werewolf; one that’s been even more sheltered and even more childlike than he is. It’s simply a nice story, and the character of Bobby is simply a plot device to get Tom to feel better about himself after last week’s events. It’s fine but nothing groundbreaking.

Another slight complaint… Being Human has a habit of killing or getting rid of its guest stars after one episode. Crumb at least had a little arc and stuck around for a few episodes but Bobby is killed off for no real reason other than it would add another unnecessary character into the mix and as a result his suicide feels abrupt and out of nowhere. Even if it was Hatch that told him to do it.

So, hopefully Being Human can pull it out of the bag for the last two episodes. There are hints at a showdown in this episode (Alex notices that Hatch can see her, when he shouldn’t be able to, what with her being a ghost and all) but mostly it’s just a placeholder.

3 out of 5 Nerds