Sam Witwer wouldn’t change a thing about Monday’s series finale for Syfy’s “Being Human.” After four seasons, the series about three supernatural roommates wrapped up its story of redemption and friendship.
“I can’t thank the writers enough for having created such a well rounded story from beginning, middle and end for the series and also for me,” Witwer told TheWrap.
“They never ever softballed the stuff that they threw me. It was all difficult stuff,” he continued. “And I can’t thank Syfy enough for letting us do the show that we wanted when we told them that we didn’t think we could do a good fifth season and they heard us and they let us do a great Season 4. And I think when people re-watch these 13 episodes, they’ll realize that all the episodes are leading to the end of the series. And, that’s really satisfying.”
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Watched by 1.4 million total viewers, “Being Human” ended its run as the No. 1 cable drama on Monday with the advertiser-coveted Adults 18-49 demographic for the 9 p.m. hour and achieved a social media high for the show.
(Spoiler alert: Don’t read this if you don’t want to know what happened on Monday’s series finale titled “There Goes the Neighborhood: Part 3.”)
TheWrap: Tying up the romance between Aidan and Sally [Meaghan Rath], as well as a happy ending for Josh [Sam Huntington] and Nora [Kristen Hager], are pretty crowd-pleasing storylines. How much did the viewers’ desires factor into the way the show wrapped?
Sam Witwer: Yes, I would be remiss to say that fan service didn’t play a role. But, I think that we did what was satisfying for us… What I really love about the Sally love story is that it happens in basically a dream over Episodes 8 and 9. Sally only really got to experience that. The love story never actually happened. And once Aidan and Sally decided to give it a try, boom, she’s gone. So, the audience knows that love story would work, but Aidan doesn’t. That’s both really tragic and terrific at the same time.
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The series finale was basically a Sally-less episode. She sacrifices herself for Aidan within the first few minutes and then she’s gone. How did you feel about that after reading the script?
We don’t actually say it, but in Season 1 Sally’s whole thing is that she has to solve her murder. So, she solves her murder with the help of her friends and she gets her door. But, then Aidan is placed in jeopardy and Sally goes to help him. But when she returns, her door is gone. I’ve always been really surprised that the audience never asked. Your door is there when what you have to do in this world is done. So when Aidan’s destiny was questionable, Sally’s mission changed. And Sally didn’t get to move on until she helped Aidan. I think that’s a wonderful, wonderful thing in terms of the story.
That was a brave move, because it set up the stakes of the show. These people are going away and they may go away in unsuspecting ways. And in fact, you lost one right upfront. And as far as the symmetry of the show, every character had a moment in which they were absent and the other characters really felt their absence.
What was the significance of Aidan donning his leather jacket in that final battle with Ramona?
I kept pushing the producers to let Aidan wear his leather jacket. They were very resistant at first. They thought that was a vampire thing. I argued that the jacket was not about being a vampire, but represented his struggle more than anything. For example, when we’ve seen Aidan in better times as a vampire, he was always wearing better clothes. That jacket is old, raggedy and beat up. It’s representative of who he’s trying to be. So, I kept pushing for that and thankfully I finally talked our director and executive producer Stefan Pleszczynski into it. What I had to do was in the old man makeup, which was wonderfully done by Erik Gosselin, I had to walk down the hallway with the jacket on and the old man walk. And when he saw it, he realized it wasn’t Aidan trying to look cool. It looked even sadder. That was the point. It’s a struggle. The Twitter response was great when he put on the jacket, because it signified that we’re going to have a showdown.
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Everyone pretty much got a happy ending, but were there other alternate endings discussed?
There wasn’t. In fact, the idea of Sally and Aidan getting one door goes back to Season 1. And I believe it was around Season 3 when Anna Fricke approached me and said that they didn’t think it worked in Seasons 1 and 2, but that in Season 3 they saw a chemistry between Aidan and Sally and she asked me what I thought. I told her that after Season 3 that that was absolutely a possibility. And I told her I had a vision of them going through one door for the both of them and Anna Fricke said, ‘Yeah, yeah, we’re way ahead of you.’ So, we’ve had that image in our minds for a while.
You and the producers have been very upfront about your decision to end the series this season for budgetary reasons. Is there more that you want to address? Why couldn’t Syfy and the producers work out a bigger budget?
Well, it isn’t as simple as getting a bigger budget. When you do a show like this and you come up with an operating budget, everyone agrees on it. So to come back later and say, ‘Just kidding, it’s actually a more expensive show than we thought,’ that’s a complicated conversation. I wish it were as easy as saying, ‘We need more money. Give us more money.’ It’s really not that simple. This was a modestly budgeted show from the beginning and, honestly, that’s part of what we enjoyed about doing it. There’s not much oversight. You have producers doing the jobs of executive producers. You have actors doing the job as producers. You have writers throwing directions at the actors. And what that gives you, especially as an actor, is creative opportunities, wealth of creative understanding and experience. To me that’s worth not having the biggest budget, having to hurry all the time, not having the best-stocked Craft Services table, because that means you’re becoming a better artist.
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So, clearly you had chemistry with your actors, great creative input and you loved the role. So, how are you going to follow all that up?
I want to finish my second album. And then, there’s a feature script that I wrote and I looked at it and realized there’s pretty much a role for everyone on the ‘Being Human’ cast. I’d love to work with them again. That’s the first time I’ve said that publicly. I’d really like to do that. I’m going to try and find time to throw that together before other work swallows me up, but that would be a lot of fun.
Watch the “Being Human” stars’ message for for their fans below:
And below, watch a video about Witwer’s collaboration on the show’s music: