The show creator has been talking about his cheeky twist, and the possibility of taking over from The Moff as Doctor Who's big boss.
**WARNING: What follows contains some spoilery stuff about the ending of Being Human.**
The last ever episode of BBC Three's comedy horror series culminated on a bit of a cliffhanger, as the final shot of an origami dog implied that the happy ending experienced by the show's heroes Hal, Alex and Tom may have been an illusion created by Satan himself.
But whether it was real or not, Whithouse says, is for the fans to decide.
“I wanted the ending to be slightly open-ended so there is something there for the fans to imagine,” he told SFX. “It’s deliberately ambiguous. Are they trapped in one of Captain Hatch’s dreams or did they escape? I think I know what the answer is, but I could be wrong, and to be honest after the credits roll I’ve got no say in the matter anymore. After the credits roll the characters belong to the fans, and it’s up to them.
“I’m sure many people will hate it and will be absolutely furious with it. It’ll be like issue 700 of Amazing Spider-Man in how it divides the audience. I hope that I don’t get it quite that bad on Being Human, but inevitably there will be some people who don’t like the ending. Just as, if they had skipped off into the sunset happily having saved the world, some people would be dissatisfied with that. But then the most unsatisfying ending would have been if the series had just not been recommissioned and for it to end with Hal strapped in the chair.
“I do feel that whatever people think of the ending it’s a comma not a full stop, it’s not definitive. Partly because I didn’t want their stories to be finite, I wanted there to be room for further adventures and further journeys and so on. I want the future of the characters to belong to the fans. I wanted to leave them with a slightly incomplete story.”
That said, the showrunner has revealed that an extra scene on the DVD will give us a more definitive ending.
“Having said all of that, on the DVD there will be an extra scene that takes place about a week after the end of the series. After that the answer is pretty definitive,” he said. “We thought about doing a scene from earlier in the episode, possibly a scene where the devil, who is now possessing Mr Rook, goes and kills the Secretary of State – ie, me. And much as that would have been fun we thought well if we’re going to do an extra scene we want it to be our three heroes. And there weren’t any interesting ideas for scenes that would have happened before the end of the series.
“We could have done something like one of the online scenes, something affectionate and sweet, but we wanted to do something a little more exciting than that. We decided if we were doing one that was set some time after the last scene of the episode then it had to somehow answer the question about what had happened.”
Whithouse went on to address recent rumours that he could be next in line to take Steven Moffat's 'King of TV' crown should the Doctor Who boss decide to step down.
“I have heard the rumours. I’ve been hearing them for years now. In terms of what Matt and Steven are planning after the anniversary, I do know the answers to those things, but there is absolutely no way I can tell anyone,” he said.
“In terms of my future on Doctor Who, this kind of speculation only takes place in the heads of the fans. I’m going to be busy doing The Game for however long that lasts and I think Steven is doing incredible work on Doctor Who and I’d much rather he stay there. No-one from the BBC has said anything to me. Whether or not it’s something the BBC is considering, I genuinely have no idea. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intrigued by the idea, but also it would be terrifying. It’s definitely something I’d be really tempted by but I’m genuinely not in any hurry to do it. And why do people assume the BBC would want me? I’m sure there are much stronger contenders than me!”
Ooh, we don't know Toby. In our humble opinion, you'd do a fine job.
The last ever episode of Being Human is now available to watch on BBC iPlayer. *Sniff*, *sob*, etc, etc.
