In “Being Human,” a Vampire, a Werewolf, and a Ghost Share a Flat...

It sounds like the set-up to a joke: a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost take an apartment together…

It’s actually the set-up to a new series, Being Human, premiering this Saturday on BBC America. But in the show, it’s also the set-up to an occasional joke or two. For example, Mitchell, the vampire, says to George, the werewolf, after he's been told off by someone else, "If anyone said that to me, I'd bite their head off. I suppose in your case, that's actually a possibility."

Still, this is definitely not a sitcom.

The most important thing first: fans of out British actor Russell Tovey, who plays George, the werewolf, will be happy to learn that he gets quite naked.

Often.

He’s constantly changing into werewolf form, and then back again. This requires him to be surprisingly starkers. In the first three episodes made available for preview by the network, he even has a sex scene or two.

As played by Tovey, George is a very fussy, neurotic character, and he’s also extremely adorkable. It wouldn't e surprising to learn that at some point in his acting career,  someone had advised Tovey to get surgery so that his ears didn’t stick out quite so much.

Thank God Tovey didn’t listen, because that person has absolutely no idea what makes a person attractive or even sexy.

But Tovey’s nude scenes aside, Being Human is not a sex romp either.

So what is it? Well, it’s an actioner, of course, as all three characters struggle to unravel the secrets of how and why they became the monsters they’ve become. Some of what they discover about their origins is quite intriguing (and some, like the vampire’s struggle to break from the hidden underworld of other vampires, is clichéd – but at this point there’s almost nothing about vampires that isn’t cliched).

But most of all, Being Human is a character study. About monsters.

No, seriously, it is – and it’s a pretty damn good one at that.

Mitchell (Aidan Turner), George (Tovey), and Anna (Lenora Crichlow) are not your usual monsters. None of the three wants to be what each has become and the show is about how they cope with being not-quite-human.

"I feel safe here," one character says of their flat. "There are monsters outside."

In other words – irony alert! – despite the fact that they're all "monsters," they're not really monsters. In fact, they're probably more human than most actual human beings, who blithely take for granted all the normalcy that these folks crave.

And yet, they're definitely not like the humans they once were.