Bitten Season One

Doesn’t pack a punch

released OUT NOW! 2014 | 15 | dVd

Director daegan Fryklind Cast laura Vandervoort, Greyston Holt, Greg Bryk, Michael Xavier

Based on Kelley Armstrong’s books about a pack of werewolves, this Canadian show is a contender for “so bad it’s almost good”. Mostly, however, it’s just plain bad.

Somehow, though, Bitten lasted for three seasons. We can only assume from the evidence on display in this first year that it managed this because viewers enjoyed the male characters taking their tops off in almost every scene. It certainly can’t be down to the plot, which sees former Supergirl Laura Vandervoort as Elena, the only female werewolf, returning to her wolf pack in order to investigate a series of murders. While the men are busy showing off their pecs, she either cries, fights or has sex. Occasionally she also turns into a wolf, which, in all fairness, she makes look incredibly painful. However, the budget for lupine CGI was clearly derisory. You can’t help but be sorry for the people behind the scenes who no doubt worked so hard to obtain such average results. They must gaze at Game Of Thrones’s Direwolves with envious eyes.

So, yes, Bitten is dreadful. The wolves are crap. The opening theme sounds like an out-of-tune daytime soap opera. The sex scenes are often weirdly unerotic; one involving two wolves is so bad you’ll really, really laugh. When the cast are clothed, they’re reasonably watchable; when they’re naked, which they are a lot, you cringe for them.

But most of all, rather stunningly for a show about werewolves that are fighting serial killers, it’s dull. Not so much “alpha” as “zeta”.

Extras None. Jayne Nelson

The sex scenes are weirdly unerotic

Wolves don’t actually have “alphas” in their packs: this idea is based on flawed research of wolves in a zoo.