Incredibly good acting.

roedyg

The premise: a vampire, werewolf and ghost live together is about as silly as you could imagine. However the acting is so spectacularly good, you are instantly sucked in. There is some humour, (such as ageless vampire cutie moon-eyeing an aged past girlfriend), but they play it with a straight face. Russell Tovey as George the reluctant werewolf is perhaps the best actor I have ever seen in a TV series. He plays with his appearance to change from a Matt Damon clone to a complete dork to Truman Capote. He plays with his voice, ranging over every possible emotion. He is always surprising you with a new angle to his character. His screams of pain as he transforms into a werewolf are unbearable. He is completely convincing. I fell madly in love with with his character. He was just so open, with such heart, complex yet easy to understand.

Annabel Scholey made me hate her so intensely the instant she came on screen. She projects such a strongly nauseating personality with just some fine control of her facial muscles. She has that knack like nobody else. She was also able to make her character gradually more sympathetic, all through body language. Other actors should study how she does this.

The other actors too are done in Kodachrome, a bit more out there, trying something unusual. This does not feel like TV or a movie for that matter, perhaps more like a play.

The episodes are quite long, and it feels like the writers could not come up with enough minor plot elements to fill them. So they pad with meandering dialogue, that feels much like real life, but left me itching for them to get on with the show. The ground rules of how reality works in this strange universe are just incidentally explained. You often see some strenuous conflict without knowing what fuels it. The major plot elements are full of big surprises, however -- very clever.

There are not many special effects. The ghost just appears without any fade-in. Most of the transformation to a wolf occurs off camera. The main thing you see are a series of bumps appear long George's back. Sometimes you watch people's reaction to what would be a special effect rather than the special effect itself. This works surprisingly well.

score 8/10

roedyg 3 August 2012

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2653622/