The show, currently airing on BBC3, will return next year for a second series.

Danny Cohen, Controller BBC3 says: “I’m thrilled that we are recommissioning Being Human. It’s hugely popular with young viewers and earned great critical acclaim at the same time.

“It’s also a very important staging-post in the successful development of home-grown young drama on BBC3.”

Ben Stephenson, Controller BBC Drama Commissioning, added: “I am very excited Being Human is returning for a second series. It’s a distinctive modern series that has captured the imagination of the BBC3 audience in terms of strong viewer loyalty and critical acclaim, signalling a real breakthrough for drama on the channel.”

Rob Pursey, Executive Producer for Touchpaper Television, says: “‘We already have some very exciting, very dark new stories up our sleeves, so we’re delighted to have the opportunity to make a second series of Being Human.

“BBC3 has been a brilliant platform for us to mount an unusual and ambitious drama.”

Sylar - no more Mr Nice Guy... again

Although the first episode of this third season showed some promise (Nathan’s new found religious fervor, in particular, looked like it might just go somewhere), things have progressed since then seemingly on a “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” basis.  Yup, continuity and logic just can’t shout loud enough when the writing team are postulating, “Wouldn’t it be cool if: Sylar and Noah had to work together/Sylar was revealed as being Peter’s long lost brother/Mohinder got powers/Ando got powers/Everyone lost their powers…” and so on.

It’s resulted in a show constantly backing out of storyline cul-de-sacs (actually, Sylar isn’t a Petrelli; nor is he good; Mohinder’s cured of his powers etc etc) and dropping bits of the plot as it goes along (What happened to Linderman? Where did the Haitian suddenly nip to in the final episode?).

Season one casts a long shadow over the show, a firecracker run which impressed by blowing every trick in the stack – particularly with its various time-shifting episodes. No more can the show jaunt to an apocalyptic future, or take us back for a peek at how things began… it’s been done.

So what’s actually left? And is the show beyond hope? Here, humbly, are a few suggestions for a revived Heroes…

- Kill people! Obvious to say, but it does reveal a lack of confidence that the programme-makers have never yet offed anyone significant. And there are a few characters who’ve clearly passed their sell-by date: Parkman and Mohinder in particular.

- A new point-of-view. The fun of the time travel episodes had been (and notice I say that in the past tense) they offered a different point of view on events. Perhaps this could be achieved in new ways. For example, how about going down the Marvels (a comic book by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross) route and showing us the heroes’ antics from the perspective of ostensibly a by-stander?

- Write out Sylar. The show’s bogey man now seems to be stalking the production team. In series two and three, new villains have been introduced (Kensei, Parkman’s dad, Old Man Petrelli), dressed up as the biggest and baddest threats ever… until suddenly there seems to be a crisis of confidence, and Sylar is hurriedly re-established as top dog. So get rid of him and go for broke with something new.

- Develop Hiro. There’s a pervasive fear in really moving the characters on (Claire and Noah always end up back home, hiding from The Company, for example) which has particularly stultified Hiro. Originally a refreshingly ‘innocent’ voice among the maelstrom, he’s now just unbearably twee. When the show cuts to him, it’s like we’re in a different programme altogether. It was telling that when he was ‘regressed’ to his childhood, he didn’t actually seem any different. How about letting him grow up? And let the show’s immature moral compass waver as he’s forced to make tough choices.

- Have fun with physics. Okay, in a programme where people can fly and spit fire, it seems pointless to nitpick. But that bit when Ando and Daphne used super speed to, not just go back in time, but turn up at exactly the right moment, and across the globe in Toyko, was just too hard to swallow. Reign back in the reality. Wouldn’t it be good if the impact on the human body of travelling at high speed was acknowledged? Or flight – once Nathan got above the clouds, couldn’t he just once panic as he realises he’s confused and no longer knows which way is down (plus, it’s bloody cold). Some exploration of the consequence of powers might just anchor the show a little more.

Anyway, that’s five ideas from me. Suggestions, anyone?

Hermione Norris, Peter Firth and Richard Armitage

Having enjoyed perhaps its most critically acclaimed season ever (and with next week’s finale still to come), the show has regularly been attracting over 5.7 millions viewers to BBC1 and BBC3.

Ben Stephenson, Controller, BBC Drama Commissioning says: “I’m delighted Spooks is returning to BBC1 and BBC3 next year. It continues to be a channel defining show, consistently pushing the boundaries of television drama while maintaining strong viewer loyalty and attracting critical acclaim.”

Kudos will begin filming series eight in March 2009. While most of the cast expect to return, Miranda Raison (Jo Portman) has already stated she’ll only be in “some” of next year’s episodes.

Set to launch in November, The Last Millionaire on BBC3 takes 12 of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs and challenges them to see who can create the most profitable business in six different cities across the world.

“Completely out of their comfort zones,” says the press release, “stripped of all luxury, the wealthy young magnates are tested to see how successfully they can create a business from scratch in a different industry and a different country each week”.

Week one sees the group in Instanbul, Turkey. In their chosen pairs, they’re given 150 Turkish Lira and left to their own devices to come up with an enterprise inspired by – you guessed it – “young people”.

Zachary Quinto as Sylar

The morning after Heroes series three debuted in the US, the BBC screened the opener for journalists at the Curzon cinema, Soho.

Roly Keating, Controller of BBC2, introduced the preview: “Huge apologies for the short notice, as you may have gathered we didn’t know till the last minute if we were going to have the materials to do this screening, as what you’re about to see only broadcast in America in the small hours of last night. This is as close to an American premiere as you’re ever going to get.

“Normally when I do little intros like this,” he continued, “I’m very familiar with what we’re about to show you, and I’m full of little teasing hints about the narrative. I haven’t a clue what happens in this episode! Like you, I have not see a frame. So I am here as a fan.”

So how about that first 50 minutes? It’s attention-grabbing stuff, a mixture of the hokey (Mohinder’s scenes with Maya, and his own long-expected piece of character development) and the horrifying (Sylar’s torture of Claire – like a slow and painful metaphor for rape). Once more, Hiro is on a quest, no-one stays dead and – yup – the end of the world is nigh. But there is some admirably bold stuff too, chiefly about The Second Coming. And HRG is used in admirably restrained fashion.

Clearly, Heroes can’t recapture the sheer adrenalin of its first year, but on the basis of what I’ve seen, I’m along for the ride once more.

Heroes will air on BBC2 from Wednesday 1 October at 9pm, with the following episode appearing on BBC3 immediately after.

The first episode didn’t open well – the too swift description of the catastrophe, then smash straight into spy craft with lots of quick cutting and shouting and pop culture references was particularly dated and Joanne Froggatt seemed unsure how to pitch her performance as leader Hannah, to the point of being irresistibly annoying.  Once she got the bullet (the unexpected death carrying on a well worn Spooks tradition begun in fine style when Lisa Faulkner saw the wrong end of a chip pan in the second episode of the parent series), the mis-en-scene calmed down and set about defining the real ensemble and telling a proper story with long scenes full of acting.

On reflection, establishing the status-quo up front rather than having an apocalyptic Survivors-lite first episode added a much needed sense of mystery as the audience attempted to catch up on the intervening history. The plots are typical Spooks fare except, presumably for budget reasons, on a smaller scale – discover who the shooter/bomber/traitor is and stop them.  If it’s possible, the series seems to have an even stronger political agenda than the main channel version, speculating on the lengths the security services would go to in protecting society, with civil libertarians becoming terrorists to get their point across.

Doctor Who fans tuning in to see what Georgia Moffat did next after playing the Doctor’s daughter would be disappointed – saddled with a horrifyingly unconvincing character name (Kylie Roman) and bizarre red wig (that can’t possibly be her natural hair colour) she’s yet to really shine.  Better was the decision to have the maths geek Charlie (Liam Boyle) in charge rather than at the bottom of the pecking order trying to prove to his boss how clever he is, and even smarter to make him the opposite of the omnipotent Harry Pearce.  He’s forever asking his longer serving deputy Rachel (Ruta Gedmintas) for advice, offering her in turn the opportunity to be far more ruthless than her exterior would suggest.

Having these generally less knowledgeable agents also neatly sidesteps the perennial problem of the parent series where the apparently very experienced adults drop a hundred IQ points in order for the plot to move forward.  Setting the series in a fiction city and blurring the geography also means the audience is on the back foot even if the place is clearly being filmed in the oh so real Leeds. It’s actually easy enough to assume too that all this is happening in a different timeline to the other show, simply trading on the name, and format.  Despite it’s bastard origins this is turning out to be a neat bit of Orwell-lite, Whedon-lite entertainment.

The Royle Family has always been heralded as the high water mark of realism in TV comedy, but Gavin and Stacey certainly comes close. The scene in last night’s episode where everyone was getting excited over Mick’s three-second appearance on The Six O’Clock News was wonderful, and surely everyone who’s ever seen a loved one on telly could relate to it. Similarly last week’s undignified fight between Smithy and his sister was both brilliantly funny and – as someone with a younger sister myself – a wonderfully accurate portrayal of sibling rivalry.

What’s great is that all the characters in the series are likable, with even the more overt comic characters like Uncle Bryn and Nessa being fully rounded and sympathetic, without simply being used to set up jokes. The performances are exceptional too – James Corden is a great comedy actor and lights up the screen whenever he appears, and although some people seem to be finding Joanna Page a bit annoying, I think she’s playing it just right, and her accent just makes the lines funnier (“It’s going to be immense!”).

The one drawback, though, is that it’s on post-watershed BBC3, and presumably then post-watershed BBC2. Surely this is a series that deserves a pre-watershed BBC1 position? It’s genuinely fun for anyone from nine to 99 – I recommended the last series to my parents and they really enjoy it too. Rob Brydon said that he suggested Corden and Jones removed some of less neccessary swearing to make it proper family viewing, and with a bit of editing, it could easily play at 8.30pm.

And I reckon that there, it would be the biggest show on telly, by miles.

 Ashes to Ashes has consistently mystified, with episodes regularly grinding to a halt halfway through for some oddly unrevealing moments of characterisation (the end of last Thursday’s ep where Gene Hunt offers an apology seemed particularly pointless). Meanwhile, Torchwood infuriatingly continues to miss the mark. The whole thing seems compromised by a kids’ show premise sitting in an adult drama. You get the sense the production team is so confused by the series, they’ve lost any sense of what a good episode of Torchwood should look like. Series two hasn’t been completely crap, but it’s continued to underperform.

It’s Lost then, that I am turning to for my telefantasy kicks at the moment. This fourth series has been taut and adrenalized. The key moment for me occurred some weeks back when Jack asked Faraday to explain why he was running strange experiments on the island. The traditional prevarication then ensued, and I was left assuming that the answers Jack was looking for would be withheld for weeks on end. But just five minutes later, Faraday was outlining the whole theory regarding the island being caught up in some kind of time vortex thingy. What a relief to get some answers.

I’m not sure if the 60-odd hour investment in watching the first three series to start getting these kind of pay offs is entirely worth it, but the episode in which Desmond started jumping through time, was quite simply the best slice of telefantasy I’ve seen since ‘Blink’, and remarkably complex and high-concept for a mainstream TV series.

Completely unrelated, but a quick nod of appreciation too for Virgin 1′s American Inventor.

This televised modernisation of the story of the birth of Christ kicks off Liverpool Capital of Culture year and was brought to us by the people behind Easter’s Manchester Passion. However, it was logistically an even more complex prospect than the crucifixion; narrated in front of a crowd by joyous MC Geoffrey Hughes as the Angel Gabriel from a stage at the bottom of William Brown Street, his commentary and shouting intercut with scenes set in other parts of Liverpool city centre and beyond. This was everything that might appear in the average school nativity but on a massive scale and with a BBC outside broadcast unit instead of a nervous parent with a camcorder.

In St George’s Hall, Cathy Tyson, aided by some winning Busby Berkley-style dance routines, gave a panto rendition of Herod – in this version a Minister for the Interior bent on chucking out asylum seekers such as the good Joseph. She was visited by the three wise men – who included ex-Chinese Detective David Yip and Joe McGann sporting a rather natty velvet jacket. Up by St Nicholas’s Church, we met the shepherds – Andrew Schofield knocking out a decent rendition of Imagine before being visited by Jennifer Ellison doled up in a silver tracksuit as an angel. Sadly we cut away before seeing the star that would lead them to St John’s Gardens.

The most impressive journey was for Mary and Joseph, who began in the café of the Seacombe Ferry Terminal before travelling across the Mersey by boat (instead of the usual donkey), through the streets of Liverpool and up to the stage. This central couple were rather actually rather convincing – with West End veteran Jodie McNee in particular generating real sympathy for Mary’s plight and clearly in tears at one point. This was some mean achievement when you take into account much of the show was happening across town, the duo had to wait for cues before performing and they had to ensure they reached their goal before the finale.

Most of the songs also worked well, even if the resonance of some of the lyrics was lost, despite the best efforts of the performers – a problem with the microphones led to many of the words not being quite audible. Good job everyone knows the plot. Some thought had clearly gone into the context of the selections – such as the appearance of Mary and child heralded by Lady Madonna – and why not celebrate Liverpool’s musical heritage at an event like this? It’s all a matter of taste, probably, but original composition just would not have worked in this context. It’s far more impressive to have a standing audience that looks like half the population of the city, singing en masse, All You Need is Love.

It was also dead funny – the look on Mary’s face was priceless when Gabriel apparently appeared to her and explained her physical predicament. Ditto her husband, who clearly got the wrong idea. Often the script attempted to burst the expectations of the viewer – when Hughes had to indicate Christ’s parents were taking the ferry across the Mersey he joked, “You might think that’s a cue for a song … well it isn’t.” Schofield, meanwhile, perked up on hearing free food might be available at some point, at which point a fellow shepherd suggested he should stop fulfilling the stereotype. Only some of the material Cathy Tyson had to deal with fell rather flat and listless, but after booing from the crowd, proceedings went right back on track.

I imagine there will still be some viewers who were offended by all this, either because of the appropriation of the key biblical story or a reminder that for some Liverpool is the centre of the universe. But hopefully even they couldn’t deny that, for the most part, this was done with the best of intentions. Everyone involved got into the spirit of the thing, and as the crowd parted to give Mary and Joseph a clear run away from their pursuers, you really could believe that all you need is love.

For those who griped about series one last year, there’ll be little to appease them here. Everyone still fancies everyone, it’s violent, glib, swaggering. I think it’s terrifically entertaining (an early scene features James Marsters dressed as Adam Ant, strolling into a nightclub telling all the people he doesn’t fancy to go home). Yes, it’s still a bit silly, but this time out – if anything – it knows that. Later on, Ianto tells Jack to search the roof of a building, commenting that he’s good on roofs. Oh, and right at the start, as the team turn up in pursuit of the aforementioned motoring fish, a witness mutters, “Bloody Torchwood” as they roll on by in the Mystery Machine.

The obvious main headline from the morning, I think, was the fact the show is going to get a pre-watershed repeat, meaning there’ll be a “clean” version in circulation sans the swearing and violence. But not the same sex snogging. That stays in. Oh, and James Marsters – who plays Jack’s former Time Agency colleague – will be returning later in the run. “I’ve found Gray,” he muttered enigmatically, as he disappeared into the rift, setting up this year’s over-arching macguffin – which Jack, of course, refused to talk about.

What else? Well, Andrew Cartmel was in attendance, although I’m guessing purely in the role of an interested onlooker.

As the morning drew on, I interviewed Eve Myles, who was effusive and fun. Gwen gets married this year! And Rhys finds out about her day (or is that night?) job! Would she appear in Doctor Who? “I’m not in the next series,” she said – the qualification piquing my interest, before Barrowman walked over and groped her tits.

Come lunchtime, it was face-to-face with the man himself. Clearly a little tired from the morning’s press activity, he seemed a tad “off-duty” and more candid than normal. Despite the previous incident, there was little innuendo here. As a result, I found him fascinating. I asked him about the slightly frosty fan reaction to series one. 

“It’s usually the fan sites that have the problem,” he said. “The public don’t have the problem. You think it would be the other way around. I don’t know what the fan sites want. We try to give them science fiction, we try to give them stories that are bizarre, we try to give them characters who do outrageous things that are off-the-wall. And when you give it to them, they’re still … I don’t know what it is. What we have to really establish is, we’re not Doctor Who. And if you’re looking forDoctor Who, you’re looking at the wrong show.” 

My pet theory is fans are alienated by the overt sexuality in the show. The original run of Who was asexual, making it comfortable viewing for – how can I put this? – those who perhaps aren’t able to express their erotic desires.

“See, I disagree with you,” said Barrowman, “because all the fans I talk to are so glad. The letters that I get, and the emails I get are people saying, ‘Thank goodness for finally representing the omni-sexuality of somebody, because it reflects how I really am!’. So I just think, to be honest, the problem comes from the people from the old school. The new school of the Whovians and the Woodies – I call ‘em – are the ones who are more savvy. The old school are from the classic series. You know what? It’s long gone! It’s a piece of history. It stands on its own. I’m a fan, I love it, I still love watching them. But the new Who, Torchwood? We’re different. You can’t compare us to the other one. And I think that’s where the problem is. Get over it!”

Anyway, I sense I’m rambling a bit now. So I’ll bring this entry to a close with a couple more snippets. Both from Barrowman. First up, he owns every bit of merchandise with his face on it (plus the bullets he shot at that Dalek back in series one). And, two, he seems genuinely unsure if he’ll do a further series of Torchwood. Not that he wants to stop playing Jack, but he seemed to have huge issues with the production of the show. 

“We’ll see how things work out, I haven’t made any decisions. If we do get the go-ahead, I’ll really have to sit down and think about it. It’s not the commitment. Honestly, this last series was a bit of a nightmare at times, because of bad scheduling. Because of production things going wrong …”