With all the attention from cult fans BBC America has been getting these days, you could almost confuse it for the entity once known as the Sci Fi Channel (now renamed as something most peculiar, if you hadn’t already heard). The dust hasn’t yet settled from Friday’s shocking conclusion of the five-part Torchwood: Children of Earth miniseries—please, let there be more—and already, we’re welcoming a promising newcomer to the fantastical mix, with Saturday’s premiere of the truly offbeat Being Human. (The Torchwood miniseries repeats all afternoon Sunday, followed at 8/7c by a new Doctor Who movie special, Planet of the Dead, starring the soon-to-depart-the-role David Tennant.)

For the next six weeks—and I’m happy to note that a second season of Human is in the works—the focus on Saturday nights moves from the jolly monster mash of Primeval (which concludes tonight at 8/7c, with the sad news that for financial reasons, it’s a wrap for this one) to the tragicomic ghoulash of Being Human, which airs at 9/8c.

The high concept (as in, are they high?) of Being Human sounds like a joke, as if Three’s Company had somehow mutated into a sudsy supernatural smorgasbord. Two guys, one a smoldering vampire and the other a socially awkward werewolf, move into a house with a neurotically lovesick female ghost. (And yes, at one point there’s even a bit where the vamp, werewolf and ghost walk into a bar—but it’s not exactly a laughing matter at the time.) All three of these creatures are in their 20s—the vamp was turned back in WWI, but who’s counting?—and like anyone else, they only want to fit in.

“We need to dive into the churn of humanity,” says Mitchell (Aidan Turner), the hunky bloodsucker, as he enthusiastically prepares to open their doors to the neighborhood for an old-fashioned get-acquainted party. Only one drawback: Try as these guys might, they’re not human anymore.

That’s the ironic and emotionally affecting dilemma that fuels Being Human, a beguilingly original mix of the silly, the sexy and the sinister. It works as an urban British counterpoint to the Southern Gothic shenanigans of HBO’s hit True Blood. Like that series, Human grounds the otherworldly in a decidedly real and modern commonplace world, which only makes these eerie everyday misfits’ yearning for love, normality and a bit of actual human connection all the more poignant.

“Overlooked and forgotten, unnatural and supernatural, watching the dance from the sidelines” is how lonely, mopey Annie the ghost (Lenora Crichlow) puts it. Housebound in limbo, seeking resolution for her mysteriously interrupted life, she’s thrilled to find roomies who can see her and empathize with her needs.

Meanwhile, the guys struggle against their own monstrous urges. Clumsy and boyish George (the endearing Russell Tovey, of The History Boys and PBS’s recent Little Dorrit) is new to the werewolf’s curse and is petrified at what sexual passion might trigger: “I have trouble containing myself,” he tells a nurse he’s timidly wooing. Ladies’ man Mitchell has been battling bloodlust for a much longer time but is trying to quit, just as the vampire underworld tries luring him back.

“Who are you saving, really?” a bloodthirsty acquaintance taunts Mitchell. “Have you seen Britain’s Got Talent?” There are times when you don’t whether to scream with fear or laughter. Being Human is frighteningly good.