Best. Gay. Week. Ever. (February 13, 2009)

Happy Valentine's Day Eve! It's sort of like Christmas Eve, only instead of hanging stockings on the chimney with care, you're hanging up on local florists who try to gouge you on the cost of a dozen red roses. Well I am anyway, because I'm one cheap bastard. Curse you florists of FTD!

Grousing about the price of flowers aside, this is one of my favorite times of the year! It brings back fond memories of elementary school when you would distribute candy and paper valentines to all your classmates, little boys and girls alike. See, you had to give a Valentine's Day card to everyone — even kids you hated. But you got around this forced equanimity by writing special messages on certain cards. Messages like, "You have cooties" or "I'm only giving you this because Teacher made me!" 

Well, in honor of that fine tradition I thought I'd use this BEST.GAY.WEEK.EVER! column to hand out some virtual valentines. I'm only handing out a few; to people and things that, in my book, deserve the recognition. Fortunately, no teachers are around policing things, so I can be discriminating — no need to give out cards and candy to folks who have the adult equivalent of cooties. (I'm talking to you Christian Bale, Chris Brown, and crazy lady who just gave birth to octuplets!)

So here's my first valentine....

RUSSELL TOVEY'S BUTT IN BEING HUMAN

You have to love a television series that has its cute male star going full-rearal every episode. The series in question is the BBC Three's Being Human, and the actor in question is Russell Tovey, who plays a werewolf. Every time there's a full moon Tovey's character transforms, and the next morning when he transforms back there's, uh, another full moon.  

All the butt shots are a bit gratuitous and not really necessary for the story, but hey you don't hear me complaining.

I'm a big fan of Tovey (and his rump) and I also like the premise of this series — three supernatural twentysomethings (a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost) share an apartment in order to help each other assimilate into human society. AfterElton.com editor Michael Jensen described the first episode as "a horror version of Three's Company" (Minor quibble, but can anything be more horrific than the original Three's Company?) There are some similarities — a landlord who mistakes the roomies for gay for example — but take away its supernatural trappings and Being Human is a pretty serious drama about the essential loneliness of the human condition.

Russell Tovey as George the Werewolf

While Russell's character is straight, he has a definite chemistry with his vampire flatmate (played by the smoking hot Aidan Turner), which leads to a number of HoYay moments.

Aidan Turner as Mitchell the Vampire

The first three episodes of Being Human have already aired on the UK's BBC Three. Lucky for us stateside, the series will air later this year on BBC America. Here's hoping they don't edit out Tovey's naked backside so as not to offend American audiences.

Next page! Crushing on Darth Vader's apprentice.