Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a vampire, a ghost and a werewolf rent an apartment…
While it sounds like the opening of a joke, it's actually the premise of the new Syfy original series Being Human, which premieres January 17, at 9 p.m. (8 p.m. CST).
Like NBC's The Office, Being Human is based on a hit British show of the same name. Syfy's adaptation leaves the basic premise intact, though changes the character names to protect the original. A young woman, Sally (Meaghan Rath), has died and her melancholy ghost is stuck in the apartment she shared with her fiancé. The debonair Aiden (Sam Witwer), a vampire who is resisting his, ahem, baser urges, and Josh (Sam Huntington), a reluctant werewolf who serves as comic relief when things get too intense, have decided to move in together to keep each other in check. Coincidentally, the apartment they choose is the one Sally haunts. Angsty haunted hilarity ensues.
Executive producer Jeremy Carver has promised Being Human is "not like Twilight," to which the series has been compared more than once. "What we love about Being Human is how grounded it is," Carver said. "It's set in an urban environment. Our characters are all living double lives . . . There's a certain grittiness due to the realism of the show that peels [it] off . . . from competitors."
If nothing else, the gritty 20-somethings of Being Human are older than the sparkly Twilighters and dealing with more mature issues. Sally is pining for her still-living fiancé; Aiden is fending off his menacing mentor, Bishop (Mark Pellegrino), who wants him back among the bloodsucking fold; and Josh, once a promising medical student, is enraged about being forced to abandon his dreams and family. Plus, there are all the usual problems roommates have adapting to each other. Of course, those are magnified by little things like ripping out people's throats and lycanthropic transformations.
Advance word on the show has been promising. Among the adjectives employed by reviewers so far are "compelling," "appealing," "gripping" and "biting" (that last one is trying a bit too hard, but I get it). I didn't get a screener copy, so I'll have to wait until Monday to weigh in like everyone else. But based on the promo embedded below, the performers are appealing and the humor is sly and smart. Syfy has a pretty good track record with me, so I'm pretty jazzed about it. As long as it doesn't try too hard, Being Human might just be a winner. Now if I could just figure out the end of that joke…
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a vampire, a ghost and a werewolf rent an apartment… 
If nothing else, the gritty 20-somethings of Being Human are older than the sparkly Twilighters and dealing with more mature issues. Sally is pining for her still-living fiancé; Aiden is fending off his menacing mentor, Bishop (Mark Pellegrino), who wants him back among the bloodsucking fold; and Josh, once a promising medical student, is enraged about being forced to abandon his dreams and family. Plus, there are all the usual problems roommates have adapting to each other. Of course, those are magnified by little things like ripping out people's throats and lycanthropic transformations.
