There’s a simple problem with old school werewolves and vampires-there’s nothing stopping them from taking over the world. If all it takes to make a new werewolf is being bitten by an old werewolf, than how long would it be before the whole world was nothing but werewolves? Our heroes, such as they are, in Bitten consider themselves the Werewolf Police Force. It’s their job to make sure no one goes around making new werewolves. At least not in their backyard.
And I mean literally in their backyard. They don’t seem to care much about the rest of the world, but when a Mutt shows up and starts killing people in their hometown, well, of course you realize this means war.
Bitten is a show about a bunch of werewolves who don’t like being werewolves and don’t want anyone else to be a werewolf either. About half of the werewolves are busy passing for normal, while the other half is doing this kind of Xavier’s Home for wayward Werewolves thing. Being a werewolf is hard. The Change kills most people who are bitten and most of the rest kill themselves when they realize what has happened. This just leaves the strong and mighty to join the rich family in the woods, unless they decide to kill you, in which case you’re just screwed.
Since Bitten is a Canadian show there are a few bare asses here and there and the gore splattered about is a little heavier than usual, though it doesn’t quite rise to True Blood levels on either count. The actors are all good and I like most of them. The set designers had a lot of fun with old homestead where the king of the werewolves resides. There are mounted heads all over and massive paintings wolves cover many of the walls. It has a kind of Adam’s Family meets Twilight feel.
Bitten wants to be a novel instead of a TV Show. There is a lot of back-story and a lot of character development and a lot of time spend watching people bemoan their sorry lot in life that they have to be werewolves and live forever. But not all of them get to live forever, there is murder a foot.
Like most modern monster stories, they have to change the myth a bit to make it work as a dramatic element. Werewolves can turn whenever they want to, even more than once a night if the plot calls for it. This mean we don’t have to wait around for the full moon to have some hot werewolf action. I’m less than impressed with the CGI wolves, but I guess they could be worse.
Bitten just seems all too familiar.
