Slate’s review of the HBO television adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s “Game of Thrones” had me wondering if the editor took the week off, and whether there may be an opening in the writing staff I might apply for. The article begins with three paragraphs of numbingly unfunny, office-trope-mongering, doldrums-drawling sarcasm. The typist (author would be unearned) decides to replace their own experience for the review, an experience which seems to lack, might I say, production value.

 I’ll say right off the bat that I understand the natural, if adolescent, impulse to sicken and wretch in the sight of all the geek-love buzz and HBO’s heavy promotion of “Game of Thrones”, which included food trucks and iron-throned pedicabs. That might knee-jerk a reviewer into playing hater for a day. Nobody likes to be led by the nose. This is the web, after all, and ranting is more fun than writing. Of course, neither Martin nor HBO are beyond reproach, either for their fan status or their obvious success. I don’t care how much money Twilight made, it and its fans deserve to be blamed for the irresponsibly messy poo "Twilight" made in our collective living room, and I will say why ad nauseum if I’m asked.

Perhaps that’s rude of me to say, but if I were to review "Twilight", I’d explain my point of view. The review of “Game of Thrones” I’m complaining about literally has nothing to do with it’s purported subject. If anything, it appears to be one of those papers a student writes in defiance of the professor’s assignment, but that’s probably actually giving it more honorable motive than this proto-solipsistic drivel deserves. It doesn’t even mention the subject of the review until the third paragraph, and then only to talk about the hype surrounding the title. It refers to the show as “dragon-ridden” which, considering that there are no dragons in it, is one of those oh-so modern “opinions” which needs “fact-checking.”

The reviewer goes on to compare his task to someone who hates "Harry Potter" having to read and write about one of the books, which means he probably should turn his paycheck in. From this point on, the article begins to make curious, although sumptuously worded, criticisms that imply the author decided to review the thing he didn’t want to watch, rather than actually watching it. He complains about the violent and sexual content as if it’s a sop to a crowd of lechers, when it’s quite at the heart of the story and is honestly must less prurient than the pandering other “gritty” critical darlings pepper themselves with. He calls the writing “unscaleable slabs of expositionistic dialogue”, a phrase so titillating it must be true – although it probably means that he never actually watched the materials sent to him. The dialogue scenes in “Thrones” are quite quick. He complains that there is no “revelation of character through action”, when that is precisely what happens on screen. Lord Ned Stark is introduced to us forcing his young son to watch a beheading that he himself stands executioner for, a lesson he feels the boy must learn over his mothers protests. That is precisely revelation of character through action.

What’s hysterical to me about all this is that another Slate author called the first on the carpet in an article that gives the first much more benefit of the doubt than they deserve, or that he showed to “Game of Thrones”. The very existence of this response calls into question the veracity of the first – as if the two decided in advance to play a little game. The problem is, the second author seems fairly on-point, so I’ll have to keep my media-conspiracy fantasies for myself (or pen a winning, gritty AMC drama about it).

A far less honest second-stab has been posted to the New York Times, where the original author of a review that prompted nuclear war from the “geek girls” on Twitter has posted her version of “I heard you”. It does far less than apologize for her ham-handed, if unabashedly ignorant review, and in fact refuses to acknowledge that her critics even deserve to have responded to her. She lays out the fact that she has been criticized as if its somehow amusing that the unwashed masses have dared to use that internet-thingy to voice their rabble-rousing. She even goes so far as to claim the fact that she knows no people who enjoy fantasy fiction as a kind of badge of honor, or at least (or actually, worse), an excuse for her point of view. This is the nicest possible way for me explain that nonsense: its like saying its okay to be of the opinion that milk is just for stupid babies because she doesn’t know any babies.

She goes on to claim that she’s allowed to have whatever opinion she wants, which is always a fascinating argument, but she actually goes on to boast that she is a “more than suitable stand-in” for the “average non-fantasy viewer”. I find this interesting because she’s actually saying, in an I-didn’t-quite-say-that-hand-waving way, that her opposition to the genre somehow makes her a kind of hero of the true book-readers, meant to stand against the hordes of semi-literate fantasy fans. Which is, again, like claiming that since you despise Ethiopian cuisine, you are eminently well suited to recommend to others which Ethiopian restaurants they might enjoy, just in case they don’t hate it.

Which is even more funny because I like Vladimir Nabakov and somehow, beyond all reason, still manage to enjoy G. R. R. Martin. I mean, I watch foreign language films with subtitles and I like them, and I still loved "Game of Thrones". Tell me, oh great and powerful wizards of culture: which one should I feel guilty about?

Just don’t tell anyone I like Stephen King, or I’ll lose all credibility.

Patterson’s Review on Slate:
http://www.slate.com/id/2291119/

Seitz’s Response to Patterson and Bellafante:
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/04/16/game_of_thrones_review_of_reviewers/

Bellafante’s response on NYT:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/pull-up-a-throne-and-lets-talk/?src=mv

More vampires? Bite me, you say? Look. Myths get mined because they can’t be copywritten, and some memes overpopulate because producers realize how much free advertising they get for co-opting their brand of the big idea. So, yes, I’d vote for a moratorium on vampires – or I would have until I watched “Being Human”, which made me realize – I’m not sick of vampires. I’m sick of vampires who don’t get bloody enough.

The characters of Aidan and Josh are monsters trying to be human. That simple, central metaphor clamps down hard: all of us are misshapen, immoral things who didn’t get a guidebook on humanity when we were born. And that’s really what the ideas of vampires and werewolves are for – to embody those parts of ourselves so we can look at them – the question is – are the writers going to use that idea for its true potential? Or are they just out to tickle our wannabe?

The vampire-werewolf buddy system on the Syfy re-spawn of the BBC hit Being Human is built of two fully flawed - dare I say it? - human characters. Aidan and Josh – gosh – they make mistakes. They lose control. They give in to their baser urges. They react based on fear and pain and lust, they become judgmental and angry. They are human. That, and the superb delivery of the dialogue, the great pacing of the plots and the awesome soundtrack have me tuning into Being Human every time.

Monday the 11^th is the season finale – but the last two episodes of the season have already burned through enough plot that they might have been finales themselves. I respect that, I want story, not the endless character commentary on the possibility of story that seems to pass for drama. Maybe that’s owed the BBC version – there’s a wealth of storylines already built up to work from.

Plots have come at us thick and quick since the beginning, that’s always been a strength of the show. The first time our ghost character touches someone – it isn’t a maudlin, episode-long eye-wrenching blather-fest – it’s the happy, goofball truth that it should be and then we’re on to the consequences – in the very next scene, even – not next week. The central vampire antagonist is smart, which helps to play out the drama. He's a vampire, which means he can play as long of a game as he likes. The patient but persistent practicality of his evil is the perfect metaphor for the more everyday evils we all face: this is what we have to do. Mark Pellegrino plays Bishop, and he can't be stopped – Pellegrino played Jacob on Lost and the devil himself on Supernatural – he has a talent for grounding his performance in a scene about any myth or mystery in something simple effective and real.

Syfy’s premiere of the North American remake of “Being Human” immediately encored twice afterward, and I’ll admit to watching it at least two times – it was the exceptional performances from Sam Witwer and Sam Huntington, the charisma and awkwardness they packed into every look and line. The two main actors are perfect compliments and the dialogue was a good mix of equal parts clever, droll, stupid and real.

I love the score, especially "Have you Seen My Ghost" from the premiere - an equally disturbing and celebratory song, a contradiction which showed off the deep heart of the show. Music seems to be the last of our rituals left that can easily acknowledge that seemingly rational contradictions are really just the true strangeness of our lives – I want to see mass media exploring more of those complexities. Does Being Human run the risk of bubbling up into soapy horror-fantasy sillyness? Sure – but it hasn’t yet.

Whatever the plot, Sam and Sam will keep me watching.  Their lonely moments give you an entire interior dialogue without a word of narration. Their work together is a master class in how the page pales to what actors create by playing off each other.  Sam Witwer may have the perfect face for the role of vampire Aiden, a brooding, classically angled visage equally easy to imagine in the back-then and the right-now.  His embodiment of the character’s addiction can be haunting – and then he switches gears flawlessly into the funny. Werewolf Josh's awkwardness and lack of control are exactly what it is like to be a modern man: the body is a beast and the boys we are inside are all broken. Aidan's addiction is the sexier, and slightly less true, story, and so prone to the romanticization of the worst urges of our sexuality, but the series doesn’t spare him the consequences of his slipping, in fact, they pile it on.

I haven’t said enough about the ghost – a character that has grown on me throughout the season. In the penultimate episode, Meagan Rath turned to face her nemesis and beamed into the camera with the face of a falcon. After watching her emotional outbursts orbit around her pathetic existence for a season, I’m looking forward to watching Meagan embody the new levels of spirit her character is going to get.

If you still need to be convinced: the vampire, the werewolf and the vengeful spirit are all three of them well-realized, well-written interesting thought-experiments in identity. The horrific elements of their characters are clearly defined, there are moments when they are monsters and moments when they are human. Normal people don't usually get to compartmentalize themselves so much, we don't get to forgive our faults. "Being Human" surpasses this fantasy of forgiveness by ensuring that their characters’ compassion brings certain suffering: in one scene vampire Aidan's strength and speed are overcome by a mere human – simply because his compassion causes him to stupidly hesitate. And the show is funny, too.