Day 27 - Favourite pilot
UK television doesn't really do pilots, probably because it's far cheaper to do a series of 6 and then let is sink rather than throw a lot of money at 1 episode and then decide whether to commision a series, as there'll probably only be six episodes in a series anyway. Obviously, in the US, it's different, as the company make 13 episodes instead so having pilots makes more sense for them. Over here, we don't see them as pilots, we see them as the first episode of a series, so it's hard to tell.
More recently, however, BBC 3 had a series of pilots. The idea was that 6 pilots would be shown, and the pilot that got the best response would get a series.
Now, unfortunately, the head of BBC 3 decided to screw this up, because he loved Phoo Action (
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1116185/) so much that he demanded a series of it. The head of BBC 3 remains, to this day, the only person who liked Phoo Action. This caused a small problem for the remaining shows, as it was the first of 6 to be broadcast and the series was announced on the day it was shown.
The remaining 5 were shown.
The second of these was pitched as a dark-ish comedy where a ghost, a werewolf and a vampire share a house. You all know of my love of all things vamp, so I sat down and watched it. The milisecond it was over, I added Being Human to my interests list and tried to find out how I could keep this wonderful little show on the airwaves. Because of the mis-guided Phoo Action decision, us Being Human fans had only one recourse - the petition. If anyone wonders why I will quite willingly sign your TV petition, it's because ours worked and we got a series of Being Human (it's now up to 2 and number 3 is being filmed).
It's not that there we're changes, they certainly changed the tone of the series, but only slightly, and two out of the three leads were changed. But they kept Russell Tovey (George the werewolf) and that was important, because I love and adore Annie and Mitchell, but George is the heart of the show.
It's not like the changes were entirely bad, because I love Lenora Crichlow's Annie, more so that Andrea Riseborough's Annie (not a diss on Andrea Riseborough who is an actress of greatness beyond her years and made Maggie Thatcher sympathetic when she played her, which should tell you how good she is). I find it amusing that the series plays up the Annie and Mitchell thing, but I think they had more chemistry in the pilot, but that may have been more to do with the men with sticks.
And Mitchell got changed. Now, I'm in the part of fandom that prefered pilot! Mitchell, and it really is a total YMMV (or I'd go with your mileage will vary). In the pilot, he appears to be some sort of important vampire and there's a reason why Herrick wants him on-side. No such reason is given in the series. Herrick also changes, and he's one I prefer in the series, because ordinary every day evil trumps underplayed evil emperoring everyday.
In the case of Mitchell it comes down to whether you prefer your vamp angst to be 'help I'm immortal and can't seem to have sex without killing people' or 'help I drink human blood and hate myself (and can't seem to have sex without killing people although the reason for that is brilliantly explained)'.
I personally still want to write the crossover where the series and the pilot are neighbouring parallel universes, and one Mitchell slips between the two and runs into the other one (it'd be Mitchell after the pilot and Mitchell after season 1) and one warns the other and pilot! Mitchell would be all 'but George is okay, right?' because while Mitchell and George are adorable in the series, in the pilot they're out and out snarky adorkable.
I love the series, you may have noticed me squeakily blogging about it, but I fear part of me will always love the pilot more.
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