Being Human famously started as one of six pilots on BBC3 in a competition designed to find new series. Thanks to a bit of rigging by BBC3, the thankfully forgotten Phoo Action won and was commissioned for a series before the rest of the pilots even aired. Except it was horrid, and obviously rubbish in comparison to Being Human so by the end of that year, at some expense to BBC3, Phoo Action had been cancelled and Being Human picked up for a series.
Trouble was, by that time, two of the three stars of Being Human were unavailable since their options had run out, so their parts were recast; Julie Gardner also says that once they lost the actors, they decided to take the show in another direction and the way Mitchell the vampire and Annie the ghost were portrayed in the pilot was too different from what they wanted.
Finding the pilot is now quite hard: it’s not been rebroadcast since the series proper was commissioned; it’s not been shown in the US; it’s not been included on any DVD releases; and although it’s been posted twice on YouTube, it’s been taken down at the BBC’s request. I’ve a copy, but then I’m lucky (anyone want one, provided they don’t work for the BBC?)
Intriguingly, though, a deleted scene from episode eight of series two has just been posted by the BBC and it’s a flashback to the pilot episode – except with the new cast. It’s got more or less the same dialogue and you can see how odd it all feels with the new Mitchell.
Here it is, together with two of the pilot’s scenes that still survive on YouTube. Wonder if they’ll ever release it – or redo the whole thing with the new cast?
Continue reading “A deleted scene from series two of Being Human”