As we told you earlier this week, SciFi Mafia attended the 2012 Syfy Digital Press Tour on Sunday and Monday, and had a really excellent time. We were given great access to some of the cast and production people of Haven, Being Human, Warehouse 13 and the upcoming game/series crossover Defiance.
Today we bring you the news from the Being Human front, starting with the first look photo released to the Digital Press Tour attendees. Now, don’t be alarmed…
The press release issued by Syfy yesterday announcing the Season 3 premiere date includes a reminder of why Aidan looks so different:
SEASON 3 PREMIERE OF SYFY’S HIT SERIES BEING HUMAN MONDAY, JANUARY 14 AT 9:00PM ET/PT
KRISTEN HAGER UPPED TO SERIES REGULAR AS NORA
Lineup of New and Returning Guest Stars Includes, Mark Pellegrino, Amy Aquino, Xander Berkeley, Bobby Campo and Kyle Schmid
NEW YORK – October 15, 2012 – The third season of Syfy’s hit drama series Being Human will premiere on Monday, January 14 at 9PM, it was announced today. Being Human stars Sam Witwer, Meaghan Rath, and Sam Huntington with Kristen Hager, joining this year as a series regular. The season will consist of 13 episodes.
Season 2 ended with Aidan (Sam Witwer) buried alive as punishment from vampire leader Mother, Sally (Meaghan Rath) lost in a state of limbo, and Josh’s (Sam Huntington) plot to kill his Maker Ray, endangering Nora instead.
The new season also features a stellar lineup of new and returning guest stars including:
Mark Pellegrino (Lost, Revolution) as Aidan’s vampire mentor Bishop; Amy Aquino (Harry’s Law, ER) as Donna, a witch whose supernatural spells are sought out to help find Sally; Xander Berkeley (Nikita) as Liam, father of purebred werewolf twins who is intent on locating his missing children; Bobby Campo (Final Destination) as Max, a young mortician who develops a connection with Sally; and Kyle Schmid (Copper/The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) returning as Aidan’s vampire protégé/”son” Henry.
Season 2 of Syfy’s Being Human delighted both fans and new viewers seeing its audience increase over its first season. This year the show averaged 2.115 million viewers per week (10% over Season 1) and also increased double digits in key demos: 1.27 million Adults 18-49 (+19%) and 1.28 million Adults 25-54 (+23%).
Being Human is a Muse Entertainment production in association with ZODIAK USA and is based on the acclaimed series created by Toby Whithouse and produced by Touchpaper. Executive producers are Michael Prupas (The Kennedys, Pillars of the Earth), Anna Fricke (Men in Trees, Everwood) who is both writer and showrunner, and Rob Pursey and Toby Whithouse. Irene Litinsky (Human Trafficking, The Phantom) is series producer.
Syfy is a media destination for imagination-based entertainment. With year round acclaimed original series, events, blockbuster movies, classic science fiction and fantasy programming, a dynamic Web site (www.Syfy.com), and a portfolio of adjacent business (Syfy Ventures), Syfy is a passport to limitless possibilities. Originally launched in 1992 as SCI FI Channel, and currently in more than 98 million homes, Syfy is a network of NBCUniversal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies. (Syfy. Imagine greater.)
Oh, RIGHT, Aidan was buried… Okay, are you all back from marking January 14 on your calendars? Good, because Sam Witwer sat at my table for dinner and talked and talked away about the upcoming new season. They are currently nearing the end of the season on the shooting schedule, and in fact he and Sam Huntington had to leave the dinner early to return to Montreal for an early morning call at a strip club. Yes, for the show. Sam Huntington had told us earlier in the evening that the location will only be available until 9 am, so he said the time crunch will be a little interesting.
During dinner, Sam Witwer told us that Season 3 feels more like Season 1. It isn’t quite as dark as last season, but said cryptically that “the consequences will be bigger. Much bigger.”
He was full of praise for the many guest stars in Season 3 and told us about some of the characters, like the father of werewolf twins looking for his son, which can’t be good news for the three roommates. We’ll be seeing a lot of humans in the new season, and Witwer said that’s “as it should be.” Guns will also be making an appearance, which he also feels is as it should be, an obvious tool given the nature of the show.
Some of the best news he gave us is that our favorite supernatural trio will be spending a lot more time together this season, and that they in fact will have some very “interesting” scenes together. He told us that he and Meaghan Rath had recently shot what they considered their “weirdest scene together ever” until the following week when that became their weirdest scene ever.
He talked a bit about Nora becoming part of the regular cast, and that we’d be getting more of her backstory this season; there are reportedly “a lot of things” we haven’t known about her. As for his own character, Aidan moves to the basement this year. Upstairs holds too many horrible memories for him, since he brutally murdered the two young women there last season. He’ll be very disoriented and we won’t actually see much of him for the first few episodes, having just returned from being literally underground.
But that will change, considering that one of the most interesting things he told us was that there will be a four episode backstory arc coming up in the new season. This explains how we’ll be seeing Mark Pellegrino again, which is always great news for us as well as for Witwer, as the two of them are great friends.
Anna Fricke as the sole showrunner beginning in the new season (her husband and co-showrunner Jeremy Carver went to Supernatural to be its showrunner) has been great, he told us. She is excellent at making quick decisions, and is open to suggestions from the actors, and that when she says no, she gives a reason; that she’s never too precious with the writing to allow for input. There have been few if any changes in the (very excellent) writers’ room, and the writers will often consult with the actors about storylines or particulars, believing that the actors know the characters better than anyone.
When I asked him if he still hears much in the way of comparisons with the UK original version of the show, he replied that he didn’t, other than that he now hears often from fans of the UK show, telling him how much they enjoy the Syfy version. We had an interesting conversation about the two shows, and especially about what we considered the type of humor that works best for them. He said that the humor on Syfy‘s Being Human comes out of the situations, most often at extremely stressful times, and not from setups for the sake of humor. The table all agreed that Syfy‘s Being Human really does this particularly well.
Thanks to Syfy for offering the 2012 Digital Press Tour, and to the terrific cast of Being Human, and particularly Sam Witwer, for taking the time to speak with us about the upcoming season.
Being Human, starring Sam Witwer, Sam Huntington, Meaghan Rath, and Kristen Hager, premieres January 14 at 9/8c on Syfy.
