I’ll be posting a review of Being Human later in the month, but first comes Becoming Human – it’s online spin off.

Of course, we say online but it finished it’s eight part web-only run with a full terrestrial, high-definition finale on BBC3. Whilst the BBC announced this as a reaction to it’s unprecedented popularity, with over 1.5 million views of the individual episodes, the timing of episode eight to finish the week after the Being Human finale suggests to me that this was the plan all along, unless the online presentation tanked.

Well, let me tell you it didn’t. I was hooked from the first episode, and I wasn’t expecting to be. Spin-off’s generally don’t pass mustard, and a Breakfast Club version of a Gothic horror wasn’t immediately selling itself as the best type of synergy. Leaving the web episodes aside for a minute, the daily content updates were well thought out and were certainly the reason for the growth of the audience. From 20-30 comments per day, well over 2000 were being left by the end. Admittedly half of them were the new community chatting amongst themselves, but that in itself was a testament to how much people were enjoying the concept, and how much they were prepared to spend of their time.

The television presentation, of all eight episodes edited together, might have lost the additional daily content, such as hand-held videos from the protagonists, various diary entries – but it blended eight weeks together very nicely and it certainly showed just how much the shooting script was run at breakneck pace. With a week between the web episodes, there was time for pause and reflection over the additional daily online content, but shown in one 50 minute format, the story was so tight, and told so fast that there was certainly a good 20-30 minutes more flesh which could have been put on the bones. Adam’s character was already well established in Being Human, but Matt and particularly Christa’s stories were largely untold.

I’ve chosen the inset picture deliberately as Christa (Leila Mimmack) is pictured front and center. Adam (Craig Roberts) may have been the nominal lead of the piece, with his vampire continuing from Being Human, however Mimmack stole just about every scene as the werewolf in denial, angry at the world and yet terribly afraid of what she is. Her character was stubbornly devoid of a back story, and a trick was missed here. Mimmack created the vulnerability simply via the portrayal, not via past information. We were treated to her transformation, and despite only minimal prosthetics unlike Being Human, I thought her portrayal of the sheer pain and violence of the act was superior to Russell Tovey and Sinead Keenan.

Completing the teen-reboot of the concept was Matt (Josh Brown), taking as the ghost of the piece. His job was actually pretty tricky, given the script painted him to be fundamentally pathetic and not the sort of person you’d classically want to hang about with. That he got whacked after peeping at Christa and his first act in the trio was to lie to the others, to manipulate them to wreck vengeance against his school bully, left the character with some integrity issues. The later episodes allowed Josh to show a more amiable side to the character, and bridge the credibility gap to why Adam and Christa were still helping him – in particular Christa risking transforming in the sight of the others, and within the school and all it’s attendant risks.

By the end reveal, the we had a very likeable trio who were bound together and reliant on each other. Matt had found the first true friends of his life – and like Annie was happier as a ghost. Christa had found those she could be honest with, and Adam had found those better than he and who would keep him on the straight and narrow. I certainly want to see more of them, and Becoming Human, in the future. However, “how” is up for debate. Whilst the online presentation was a rich experience, the 50 minute version was a pilot by any other name and I’d prefer any continuation to be in the same vein – a “proper” series shown on BBC3, possibly during the summer season away from Being Human proper.

They’ve certainly hit gold with the cast, which is more than half the battle.