TV is the New Reading

BBC America’s ‘Being Human’ and TNT’s ‘Hawthorne’ need work

Joss Whedon made me a traditionalist.

Decisively taking control of his storylines when he created the teen action dramatic fantasy world of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” he created some rules (and some exceptions): That is, vampires can cast a mild thrall, they cast no reflections, they’re super strong, not always super fast, crosses and holy water burn them, they burst into flames in direct sunlight and a stake through the heart kills them in a cloud of dust. They can’t enter a home without an invite but the invites can be very oblique. They’re demon-animated corpses who usually morph to feed, and they do age, but very slowly. They occasionally feed without killing, and they do kill for sport and survival and to sire other vampires, but if you curse them with a human soul they feel really bad about it.

Charlaine Harris’ vampires in “True Blood” cast stronger thralls and they’re superstrong and super fast. Silver is their kryptonite, however, and a single slender chain can immobilize and burn them. Their fangs retract, they cry blood, they burst into a cloud of fire and dust in direct sunlight and a stake through their heart kills them in an explosion of bloody yuck. Since the synthesis of Tru Blood they can survive without killing humans and some have “come out of the coffin,” as it were and they also can’t enter a home without an invite. Also, vampire blood is a powerful psychoactive drug to humans.

Like Whedon, Harris populates her world with other beings. Whedon starts out with humans and vampires, and then adds witches, demons, werewolves, trolls, necromancers and even killer androids. Harris in her Sookie Stackhouse series has introduced vampires, shapeshifters and clairvoyants, witches and pagan gods. Like Whedon, Harris introduced us to these other beings slowly, as the story went on.

Then along comes Toby Whithouse’s “Being Human” and I’m … just not sure at all what’s going on.

'Being Human'

The vampires – well, the show starts right off, there’s this vampire and this werewolf who work at a hospital. They move into a house together and there’s a ghost there.

The vampire – he’s called Mitchell – maintains control over his feeding but we’re not sure how hard that is. That is, he seems fine around humans most of the time, even humans who have cut themselves somehow (like you’d find in a hospital occasionally, such as where he works). His fellow vampires range form semi-controlled to one continuous feeding frenzy, can’t control themselves AGGGGH must bite must feed! Like practically all vampire lore it’s highly sexualized and they pass about DVD recordings of themselves playing with their food – even though you can’t see the vampire on screen because quite apart from casting no reflection, they also cast no digital image. And it’s got to be fresh-from-people blood or it’s no good, for some reason, unlike the vampverse of Whedon and Harris where blood bank blood and even synthetic blood works just fine.

Mitchell’s probably more than 100 years old but he looks about 23, and he got a problem with the vampire hierarchy in his neighborhood who seem to want to corrupt him somehow but I’m blessed if it’s ever been explained to me why that’s a priority.

Meanwhile, you’ve got Annie, a ghost who exists in varying states of not just visibility – some people can see her and some can’t – but touchability. She can move objects around effortlessly (since she’s played by a person) and people can seem to hold onto her and hurt her, but if she needs to pass through a wall to get away from something she … can. She can write on mirrors with lipsticks and people must see her moving glasses and cups about even if they can’t see her. She seemed to be tied to the house she was murdered, but she can apparently leave occasionally as well. She’s still ovulating for some reason so presumably she could settle down with a nice young male ghost and raise a ghost family with little ghost babies, but the only one she’s met so far found a door and walked through it, supposing it to be “his time.” She has had some episodes of poltergeist and she’s really upset with her one-time fiance, largely for murdering her and for finding some other tart to be with.

Then we’ve got George, the reason this story seems to jump about in 28-day installments. When there is a full moon, George turns into a ferocious wolf. George has met the guy who turned him into a werewolf and he’s made out with a woman at work on the fine furry edge of his transformation but mostly he goes from this quiet milquetoast Walter Mitty type to a rampaging monster.

What's going on?

There seems to be no consistent mythos tying it together. George has no control over the wolf but he seems to have some control over his transformation. There’s no discussion as to why Mitchell doesn’t want to kill his neighbors and all the other vampires are sort of on one long continuous spree (although you’d think someone would notice … y’know, all the deaths). And being out of sunlight seems to be important to him somehow but he’s outside in broad daylight all the time (and not sparkling or anything).

And Annie is a complete puzzle. People can see and feel her one moment, they can’t the next, and some sort of switch gets thrown where she’s throwing objects around the house but when the object of her rage – her murderous fiance – shows up (with his new girlfriend, no less), she shuts down completely.

So for people who are interested in a dark comedy about the ins and outs of living as a paranormal being in a world of humans – and who don’t always get on with the neighbors – this is the show. If you’re looking for a semi-coherent storyline and some good character development with a paranormal twist, you’re better off tracking down some “Buffy” and “Angel” DVDs.

“Being Human” airs Saturdays at 8 p.m. with encore episodes Saturday at 7 p.m. on BBC America

‘Hawthorne’

This week marked what TNT optimistically called a season finale of Jada Pinkett Smith's "Hawthorne," featuring the lead character actually gasp! doing something wrong.

"Hawthorne" has focused largely around the work of Nurse Christina Hawthorne, head of nursing at Richmond Trinity, and how wonderful she is. Basically, the administration, the doctors, the support staff, no one knows what's going on. She and her nursing staff are the ones who notice that patients are getting the wrong medications or are taking unnecessary medical risks. They're the ones who put a higher priority on giving a grieving but fearful son more time to say goodbye to his mother over the very clear end-of-life directives of the mother and her family. They're the ones who will keep a homeless woman's child out of the foster system because they personally disapprove of it and everyone involved in seeing that the child get the developmental care he needs is evil.

Because at Richmond Trinity, the nurses are the only ones who care.

Yes, Nurse Hawthorne and her headstrong staff of nurses are the only health care professionals in the entire hospital who really care about the patients, even though they're all really busy coping with their own personal foibles. The social services coordinator (played just really badly by Rebecca Field) does her job and transfers an infant into foster care without first tracking down Isabel, the homeless crazy person who mothered him. She's sympathetic – a screaming, crying, desolate mother tends to be – but to be perfectly fair, there is this whole other hospital to run and other infants to care for and protocols to meet.

I'll just point out this is the same Isabel who got it in her head to steal the incredibly expensive titanium prosthetic leg from Nurse Bobbi, the one-legged nurse who let her stay overnight at her place – she don't know, she just wanna borrow it o sumthin and then she gave it to another guy who give it to anudder guy and he sole it on ebay and she just couldn't get it back! She's really sorry, please forgive her! So Bobbi forgives her but Bobbi is still in the wrong for regretting her decision to let Isabel overnight at her place in the first place.

You know what? Isabel's chemical imbalances make her a sympathetic character when they don't make her a hilarious character but she's broken so much trust here she does not get to play that "you hurt my feelings" card.

And what's with this male nurse, Ray, played by David Hirsch? First, there's just one, and like Field he wears way too much makeup. He's crushing madly on Hot Blonde Nurse Candi (who shows truly hands-on appreciation for our nation's servicemen) but his life is so wacky he ends up sleeping with one of the doctors instead. He's played so entirely for laughs it just grates on the nerves. Hirsch reminds me of the CPA brother on "Royal Pains," and I hate the CPA brother on "Royal Pains."

But back to Nurse Hawthorne actually making a mistake. She inappropriately used her mother-in-law's influence to get D.B. Woodside, an old friend with stage-4 and therefore ineligible cancer into a clinical study, bumping another patient with stage-2 and therefore eligible cancer, which Hunky Surgeon Wakefield had gotten into the study. It all came down to a dithery lab tech who made the switch and then oh my gawd Lucy you got some splainin' to do.

In the end, a couple of "sorry's" here and there smoothed everything over, and Hawthorne's not to blame because once more she was only guilty of caring too much.

Each week she and her staff have a run-in with an inhuman administrator, a know-it-all doctor (who's always in the wrong) or a flustered, racist patient or some uncaring bureaucrat and Nurse Hawthorne finds a way to divide loaves and fishes to feed a multitude and come off smelling like a rose. No actual hospital could possibly run like this. Hawthorne's so magical by all medical logic she should be glowing and that's not even taking into account her Supermom status, raising a headstrong, forthright teenager and undermined at every turn by the doting grandmother, her late husband's mom. Oh yes, along with being beautiful and brilliant and master of her domain she's a widow, too. She's got everything under control.

I say turn her loose on this health care crisis. Choirs of angels will herald the dawn of a new era in which no one even gets sick.

Except maybe for me.

'Project Runway'

Closing us out, “Project Runway” opened its sixth season on Lifetime this weekend and I didn’t have a thing to worry about. True, they’re all in LA now, but it’s still helmed by the magnificent Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn, and judges Michael Kors and Nina Garcia made the trip as well. They’re still shopping at Mood for their fabrics, they’re still creating some wild and wonderful designs in a really short period of time and showing some magnificent creativity straight out of the gate. From what I saw the new season is off to a great start and working just fine.

“Project Runway” is airing encore events Thursdays at 8 p.m. heading into all new episodes at 9 p.m. on Lifetime.

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