12 Most Underrated TV Shows Ever
12. Being Human (US)
There's a proud tradition in American television of shamelessly half-inching our telly for their own nefarious purposes. Sometimes it works - but for every Steptoe & Son (adapted as Sanford & Son) or Till Death Do Us Part (All In The Family), there's about thirty turkeys, like the two failed pilots each for Absolutely Fabulous and Red Dwarf. For every Office, there's an Inbetweeners. Thats why no one had great expectations of the US version of BBC Three's surprise supernatural hit Being Human.
The original was, like Buffy The Vampire Slayer (a show it owed a vast amount to) both highly popular and a cult hit at one and the same time, telling the story of a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost sharing a house together in suburban England. Those expectations were lowered a further two rungs when it became apparent that Syfy would be adapting the first series of the UK version for their own first season in the US - telling the same stories with a different cast and Americanised scripts. That Being Human not only survived that scorn and that first season, but then actually thrived, is a credit to that cast and those scripts. If the UK cast and their instant easy chemistry was lightning in a bottle, then Syfy proved that lightning can definitely strike twice.
While the original never quite succeeded as well at the more epic storytelling as it did with the kitchen sink comedy and endearing characterisation, the US version scaled up and down again beautifully, managing to expand the mythology as well as give us the goofy friendships and one-liners that fans of the original had come to expect.