maxlascelles

I remember watching this when it first aired and absolutely falling in love with it! The first couple of seasons had a genuinely brilliant mix of comedy, drama and horror. Then season three came, and it felt like they had completely abandoned the humour and replaced it with pure bleakness, so I gave up on it. Personally, I feel that the essence of actually "being human" is trying to find laughter and happiness, no matter how dark your situation is, so after that I kinda gave up. However, I recently decided I wanted to rewatch what I'd seen, and finish it. I was not disappointed. Other than a clunky first episode of season four, it was incredible. I very quickly became equally attached to the new leading cast, and the humour was back! Seasons 4 and 5 are just as dark as before (in some ways darker) but the comedic elements actually help to humanise the characters and make their struggles more relatable. There are some genuinely hilarious moments, which make the more horrific events all the more poignant. If you gave up after season 3, I highly recommend revisiting Being Human!

Having read the books, the thing that saddens me is that they actually got so much right! I never thought they would be able to properly visualise the moving cities, or that they'd make the lighter than air ships look exciting or cool. They even made Shriek's relationship with Esther make some kind of sense within a short running time.

Sadly however, this should have been a tv series, not a film. They rush through the story at a rate of knots (though I will add, mostly faithfully), and as such you lose all character development. Upon release, no one cared about any of the main characters, because none were given the time they needed to develop.

Uncle is a sitcom I truly wish more people had seen. Throughout its (woefully short) 3 seasons, it deals with some very heavy themes, particularly depression and addiction, whilst still being very funny. The writing is sharp, hilarious and sincere. It's laden with pathos and there's clearly an understanding of mental health issues, yet it never strays into the realm of being patronising or sappy. I often find that sitcoms of this nature sacrifice a lot of the humour and begin to focus too much on tragedy and drama, Uncle does not, nor does it linger on the dark subjects unnecessarily. Maybe I'm alone in my love of this series, but it really resonated with me. I've experienced some very dark times (most of us have) but the one thing that kept me going was always laughter. Even at rock bottom, you can usually find something to laugh about, and that to me is what this series excels in conveying. It really struck a chord with me, and I highly recommend that everyone give it a try!