The co-creators/showrunners/executive producers/writers of Syfy’s Being Human, Anna Fricke and Jeremy Carver, recently took time away from production to speak with the press about the upcoming season two of the show, which premieres on January 16 at 9/8c. They had a LOT to say, and while they were somewhat careful about spoilers, we now have an idea about some major plot points heading our way. I’ll give you a warning before we get to that part.
In response to the question that we probably all had, asked by NoReruns.net, about whether or not they would continue to adapt storylines from the UK series, Anna Fricke stated that they had made a very definite decision to strike out entirely on their own this season. Jeremy Carver added in the qualification that “there’s always going to be an inevitable crossover just by virtue of swimming in the same pond. But… yes there was a great effort to make the series as original as possible this year given that its roots are still in the (UK) version.”
I had a chance to ask about the writing staff, as Fricke and Carver wrote some of my favorite season 1 episodes. They replied that the writer’s room this year is a mixed bag of specialties:
SciFi Mafia: I’m hoping that you’re going to be writing a lot of the episodes for Season 2, I loved your episodes in Season 1. Will you be doing most of it, some of it, and do you have new writers or the same writers?
Anna Fricke: Yes we’re very lucky, in addition to having the same the writers as we had last year, Chris Dingess and Nancy Won, we also have … four new writers this year. So we’re extremely lucky, it’s a great group of people and we also – Jeremy and I wrote three of the episodes.
Jeremy Carver: Well look, we’re very, very lucky to that we have an extremely, extremely talented core of people who – we brought on new folks this year to help us beef up for Season 2 and we couldn’t be happier. I mean I think everyone is going to be…
Anna Fricke: It’s a great mix of backgrounds…
Jeremy Carver: Yes.
Anna Fricke: …and storytelling and…
Jeremy Carver: We have genre freaks, character freaks – we just have an extraordinary group of people who have really taken to the show. So we’re just incredibly excited about what you’re all going to be seeing.
In reply to The Morton Report, they spoke about their biggest challenge in transitioning from season 1 to season 2, as well as how to help along new viewers:
Anna Fricke: Well, I mean part of it was timeline because I think ending Season 1 was,”She wants to see you.” We sort of married ourselves to having to pick things up pretty quickly, and having to explain who the heck “she” was, so I mean I think that that was a little bit of – you know timeline wise, and always with the story lines sort of working around the full moon for Josh’s change and things like that, I would say, like, figuring out that timeline in the beginning in terms of what was happening with Aidan after Bishop’s death, what was happening in Boston, what was happening with Josh?
And wanting to sort of – we couldn’t go past the full moon turning basically, because you’ve got Josh, you’ve got Nora’s been scratched and we don’t know what’s happening there.
Jeremy Carver: Yes, and I think even in more general sense you always hope that Season 1 is going to attract more people to Season 2. So while we’re a pretty serialized show and we want to give the returning fans what they’re looking for, just throw the red meat and let’s get it going, there’s a certain element of, “Wow we got to – we have to make sure we’re bringing all the new viewers and keep making them feel welcome as well.” So…
Anna Fricke: We want to set up all the new characters and the new things that we’re excited about.
Jeremy Carver: Exactly, there was a lot of set up of new things for seasoned viewers, but while still wanting to grab the new viewers by the ankles and make sure they weren’t left behind. So I think those of us having – been writing for shows, I think you’re seeing openers are always some of the trickiest because there is so much almost Calculus that has to be done.
As much mathematical equation, that’s like I was just talking about, as there is heart and emotion and all that stuff. So I think unto itself, a season opener is just tricky business.
OK, here comes the spoilery part, and there is, as I said, quite a bit, depending on how sensitive you are about such things. If you feel that upcoming storylines and plot points are too spoilery – not how they’re resolved, but how they’re set up, and who the new characters are – then thanks for reading, you are now dismissed, but don’t forget to watch the premiere on Monday, January 16 at 9/8c on Syfy.
Storylines, new characters, casting, etc, were all brought out in answer to a question that came about five minutes into the session, when SciFi Vision asked them to talk about how the relationships we’re going to see this season will be different from last season.
The spoilerish floodgates are now being opened:
Jeremy Carver: Yes. I mean for Aidan, you’re going to see Aidan – Aidan is basically confronted with the fallout from the death of Bishop, who he killed at the end of last year. And he – we are introduced to another sort of – another aspect of the vampire hierarchy in current day America, which involves sort of this overall leader known as Mother.
And Mother basically is going to sort of essentially trade Aidan his freedom – give Aidan – offer Aidan his freedom if he agrees to train her disgraced vampire daughter to be the leader of Boston.
So that opens up a whole can of worms in terms of Aidan having to deal with this pretty unpredictable daughter who he has known frankly, for the – for about close to 100 years.
Along with that we’re going to be introduced to Aidan’s vampire protégé, who is basically the last vampire Aidan ever turned, and that was back in the early 20th Century. He makes a return to Aidan’s life.
So that’s the character of Henry, it’s played by Kyle Schmid, while the character the vampire daughter is played by Dichen Lachman from Dollhouse. And both of these people will greatly, greatly complicate Aidan’s life and will play a major part in sort of leading him down this dark hole that he may end up going down this season.
We can also expect in Aidan to see the return in a way that we don’t want to spoil, but we can expect to see our character of Bishop returning in a certain way this season as well.
For Josh, Josh of course is dealing with the fallout or at least is totally unaware that at the end last season, that he scratched Nora when he turned into a werewolf, and so as we come into the new season we find Josh and Nora both anxiously awaiting the rapidly approaching full moon, neither knowing what’s going to happen.
The results of which have sort of an explosive effect on their relationship, plus we’ll see some more people from Josh’s past reenter the picture in a surprising way.
As for Sally – I’m giving an overall comprehensive answer here. So… for Sally we’ve got a ghost who considerably missed her door last season, she chose not to take that door or at least she chose to save Aidan instead, and she deals heavily with that fallout. And she will be introduced to basically lots of new ghost characters this year who will be sort of tempting her with new, sort of spectral — if that’s the proper term — spectral temptation that will also, excuse me, lead her down a much darker path.
So Sally as well will have a certain number of folks from her past in unexpected ways. So everyone is dealing with not just new and twisty monster sort of things that come from a natural extension of being the type of monster they are, but also dealing with people that they dealt with in, you know, a “previous life before they were monsters,” except Aidan. Aidan with is with mostly people he’s dealt with as vampire.
That’s a long – that’s your long answer. Sorry, I just exhausted myself.
But wait, there’s more! NiceGirlsTV asked if there is a storyline they’d like to do but haven’t, so here’s a storyline we WON’T be seeing this season, that we have all wondered about at some point:
Anna Fricke: I don’t think you have to give away the story, but I mean we do – we really keep on wanting to get back into what exactly happened with Aidan’s family, with his wife.
Jeremy Carver: The original, back in Revolutionary times.
Anna Fricke: Yes, his original life and child. So we won’t say what we’re thinking about for that, but that is a story that we actually wanted to get into, we have not time for this year.
Jeremy Carver: I mean it’s a story that we all know, we all love, and can’t wait to spring should we be lucky enough to have a future season.
CliqueClack asked if there will be ghost and werewolf hierarchies like there are with vampires, and they gave more storylines in their answer, which they were in fact very excited to share:
Anna Fricke: Yes, I mean I think it’s safe to say that this season we sort of see a new form of every monster. So we have the new sort of form of vampires and we will also see different kinds of ghosts and a sort of different ghost society that we had touched into before, and also a different kind of werewolf.
And so while it may have that same mob structure with the vampires, I think yes, we do see a sort of greater world and hierarchy in the ghosts and in the werewolves.
Jeremy Carver: Yes, I’ll go in further to say for example, in the werewolf world, I think last year, we had Josh introduced to just one other wolf, isn’t that right, Ray?
Anna Fricke: Well and the professor.
Jeremy Carver: And the professor, correct. Sorry I forgot that. And this year we are basically starting to expand frankly the types of werewolves that we’re seeing, and there will be a particular type and – that Josh comes across that will greatly alter his world. And we’ll be seeing that there is basically more than one kind of species of werewolf in our world, and we’re really excited about that.
Likewise with Sally, she’s not just making friends with ghosts, as a result of turning up her door – I’m sorry, turning down her door, we’re also going to be introduced to a different, I’ll call it, species of ghost, that she may have unwittingly caused to come into her world by virtue of essentially screwing with the heavens as it were and passing up her door.
So we’re going to see just like Anna was saying, it’s necessary hierarchy, as it is introducing different sub-species — this is all sounding very technical — sub-species of monster as it were.
It’s tremendously fun, it’s really scary and it is, like I said, we couldn’t be more excited about how we have expanded the reach sort of like world monster goes vampire this season. It’s pretty ambitious what we set out to do and we’re really excited to share it with everybody.
Small Screen Scoop asked about Nora’s part in the new season:
Jeremy Carver: Nora is a fantastically integral part of the show and we haven’t spoken about there enough. I mean Kristen Hager is an absolute gem and she deserves a mention all her own in that she come – I can say that she comes into her own, Nora, in a way that she never expected and that is both, surprising and exciting and dangerous and tempting.
And Nora very much goes down a completely wholly sort of self-sufficient road this year that has massive implication with her relationship with Josh. So she absolutely as a character on show, blossoms in terms of story line and screen time.
In reply to a question from BuzzFocus, they confirmed that, although there will be variations of the three types of monsters this season, there will not be any wholly new-to-the-show monsters; no fairies, for instance. They did not, however, rule out that possibility for future seasons. They further confirmed that the Dutch will once again be involved this season, and that Terry Kenny will have a big role early on.
Finally, while explaining that their monsters are different from other currently popular monsters because the focus is on the relationships and not on the more fantastic elements of their lives, they drop this little tidbit – which we probably could have deduced, but still!
Anna Fricke: … And I mean even in terms of like the Mother character we have, who is sort of like a Queen Elizabeth character in this vampire society, she and her daughter are actually a biological mother and daughter meaning that she turned her own daughter into a vampire. And so with something that I think has the show apart a little bit, in that you know, there are actual blood ties there.
Hoo kay. So, pretty dysfunctional. But the showrunners bring the discussion around nicely to the heart of the show:
Jeremy Carver: Yes, I think Anna’s hitting on it nice. To – it’s not questioned – it’s not necessarily a question of, how do our politics differ, it’s how do our characters differ? And we really, really – when we introduced this sort of like new line on the vampire hierarchy, we do so by focusing very heavily on the characters themselves.
And when we have this mother and when we have this daughter who have a very, very, very complicated mother-daughter relationship spanning hundreds and hundreds of years, so as much as we are – we had to deal with the “politics,” underneath it all and above it all is – and effecting all of it is, the relationship between this mother and this daughter who Anna noted are actually biological mother and daughter from again, hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
So while we’re dealing with their very complicated relationship, Aidan himself, as the season progress will realize has an extremely complicated relationship with each that spans back decades that he has to navigate while again, always sort of trying to acquire his freedom which was promised to him at the beginning of this new season.
Anna Fricke: I think what sets this show apart from some of these other genre shows, again of which I’m a big fan, is that they – our monsters are trying their best not to get enmeshed with their other monsters.
You know, Aidan, like at their heart, Aidan sort of wants nothing to do with the other vampires and Josh wants nothing to do with the other werewolves and Sally, you know, just wishes she had taken her door. And like all they want, again, just like to hit it home, all they want is to be human. And so they’re always trying to do that, trying to have human relationships, trying to have normal lives, I think that ultimately is what differentiates it.
Being Human season 2 premieres Monday, January 16 at 9/8c on Syfy.
