6.01pm: Devin is the MC.
6.02pm: He introduces our moderator for the evening, some woman from the La Times. Devin would have been much better. She starts enthusing about how much she likes the show. Yeah yeah lady, move on.
6.03pm: Out come the panellists: Toby Whithouse, Sinead Keenan (Nina), Russell Tovey (George), Lenora Crichlow (Annie) and Aidan Turner (Mitchell).
6.04pm: Bit of background: Being Human season two premieres here in the US tomorrow night at 10pm on BBC America.
6.05pm: Toby explains the genesis of the idea for the show. It started as a drama about three humans sharing a flat, each with their own problems, but then morphed into something more interesting.
6.07pm: Whithouse: "Had I been approached to write a supernatural show, the output wouldn't have been Being Human."
6.08pm: Preview clip of selected season two highlights.
6.09pm: Turner: "In the first series Mitchell is struggling with his addiction and exorcising himself from everybody. He's moved in with a wolf and decided to get himself clean. You just happen to be there, Lenora. He's doing alright until Herrick comes along, then it's no longer just Mitchell's problem anymore. When George kills Herrick, Mitchell feels responsible for that and has to reform his friendships in order for him to get clean. The only way of doing that, I guess, is getting darker and stepping into Herrick's shoes. The way it works out, before he knows what's going on, he's deep involved in something he shouldn't be. So naturally I guess it gets darker."
6.12pm: That boy can really talk. Crichlow: "Annie doesn't get darker. Oh yes she does! For her in season two, everyone kind of goes off on their own journeys. For Annie that's quite lonely. So when they go off and be vampirey and wolfy, she gets bored. She gets hit with the reality stick of being stuck and not moving on. It's very bleak for her, so she has some tough decisions to make."
6.13pm: Tovey: "It goes dark for George. At the end of the first season he's used the wolf within him and killed someone." At this point he asks who's seen all of season two, and a large portion of the crowd cheers. He notes that they've all committed an illegal act.
6.15pm: "He goes on a very strange tangent and acts out in strange way," he continues. "Doing various strange things with various strange people."
6.19pm: Clip 2: Scene between Nina and George where they're getting very frustrated with each other.
6.23pm: A very long clip that was. This moderator is really struggling to get her questions out. Bring. Back. Devin.
6.25pm: Whithouse: "It was never a conscious decision to make the second series darker, it was just a natural evolution. The ambition of the show, bizarrely, has always been to do a realistic show as possible. When we sit down and storyline, we have to talk about it in very logical terms."
6.26pm: The moderator says vampires are being used as a metaphor for gay marriage and addiction. "As human beings we all feel the same sense of loneliness and seclusion that they feel," says Whithouse. Tovey adds: "The show is about these guys trying to be human, and that's why so many people connect to it, because we're all human, aren't we?" Crichlow: "Most of us."
6.27pm: Keenan: "The beauty of the show is that the cross each of these characters has to bear is incidental. It's about how they all deal with life day to day and trying to get by as far under the radar as possible. They just want a nice, normal, humdrum, peaceful existence - which is what they don't get."
6.30pm: Aidan has put off Lenora midflow. "I've forgot what I was saying now... and I've come all the way from London to say it!"
6.32pm: Tovey complains about the extensive transformation process needed for his character relative to the others. "You just put a couple of teeth in," he tells Turner. He replies: "I love putting the teeth in. And the blood tastes lovely - it's minty!"
6.33pm: Wisely, the moderator hands over questioning to the audience. Questioner asks if the actors would change anything about their characters for the American remake. Tovey: "Their George should be less attractive than me. I think he should be naked throughout."
6.34pm: Crichlow: "I think Annie should have straight hair and not wear grey." Keenan: "Maybe Nina would have a cuter nurse's outfit, like an old-fashioned white one with a little hat."
6.35pm: What is Nina's neurosis? Tovey: "She's the fourth member of ABBA." Whithouse: "I don't think Nina's choice in men is particularly good, in as much as the first one gave her scars and the second made her into a werewolf. I haven't really thought about it, to be honest."
6.36pm: Obscure question about why George didn't want to do paintballing again. Tovey: "I think he was bullied by all his paintballing friends, they cornered him and left him."
6.37pm: Questioner adds that they wouldn't download illegally if BBC America didn't wait seven months to premiere the episodes. "Yeah you would," laughs Crichlow.
6.39pm: Question about Annie's afterlife. Crichlow: "Season two, definitely, Annie would like to think that's it and it's over. She's got something to stay for in the house now, so secretly she's quite chuffed that she missed that bus. But season two says otherwise. Death and taxes are inevitable."
6.45pm: Whithouse: "If these creatures existed, they would want to live under the radar. So they would take these ancillary jobs. If they became head of ICI, that would expose them too much. It was a very logical decision that if you're going to hide, you're going to do a low-level job. The thing about hospitals as well is that it's where life and death mix on a daily basis, so for the show that's a very evocative mix."
6.46pm: Girl asks about the most emotionally challenging scene. Turner: "There's that scene with Mitchell and George at the end of series two episode eight in the corridor, where Mitchell's world is falling around him. They've lost Annie, then George brings him back. That was pretty full-on as I remember."
6.48pm: Crichlow: "One of the most emotional scenes I've done was in season two, where Annie leaves a message for the boys. It's all voiceover but we shot it anyway. I was in pieces because it was towards the end of the shoot. We don't know what happens year to year and I was just in tears. The thought of not getting to work with these guys again..."
6.50pm: Repetitive fan requests. Tovey: "I always get asked about the werewolf transformation." Keenan: "How do you learn all those lines?"
6.51pm: Boy tells Turner that the "brooding vampire is not very interesting at all" so he's pleased things are getting darker. Turner: "Mitchell has a lot of stuff to do in the second series, so when he deals with all that, you might see a different side to him in the third series."
6.52pm: Question about how they choose the music. "We don't," says Tovey. Whithouse: "We have a composer on the show who writes a lot of incidental music. That has become part of the DNA of the show and he's an absolute genius." Apparently there are different versions of music between the UK, the US and DVD releases. Whithouse says he makes suggestions for music in the scripts but they mostly ignore him.
6.54pm: Scottish boy asks Tovey what the status of him is with Torchwood. "I dunno. No idea. Genuinely no idea. There's been lots of rumours. I did that scene [in 'End of Time'] and I never really thought anything of it. To be honest, I've never really watched Torchwood, but since then I've been bombarded with messages asking 'are you gonna be Jack's lover?' I genuinely don't know."
6.55pm: Good question about whether they now feel in direct competition with the US remake, given how popular the original now is in the US. Keenan: "It's a whole different beast."
6.56pm: Tovey notes: "It would be weird if they started doing panels at Comic-Con and we were doing panels here too."
6.57pm: Whithouse: "It doesn't affect the UK version in the slightest. The American version will be its own show. Watch it, enjoy it. Really watch it, because I'm sure I get a fair bit of royalties. The UK show is always going to remain a UK show - it doesn't have a retrograde effect on us at all. You shouldn't worry about that."
6.59pm: Whithouse on the original pilot: "What was really beneficial about is it we did exactly what you're meant to do with pilots and look at what did and didn't work. I think what didn't work was the vampires. In the pilot Mitchell had walked into a different show. It wasn't consistent. So that gave us the opportunity to redress that. The cast we had in the pilot were great but we wanted to take the show in a different direction."
7.03pm: The moderator brings the panel to a close. Thanks for joining us!
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