Being Human creator Toby Whithouse has explained the reasons behind the controversial death of one of its main stars. Whithouse said on the official site that this really is the end of Mitchell and that Turner requested finality to the character.

I thought it’d be better to have him go out in a scripted satisfying way, rather than lose him between series and open up with the rest of our heroes standing over a grave, with one of them saying “Wow, who’d have guessed Mitchell was SO allergic to bee stings…”

The consequences of the Box Tunnel Massacre were always going to be the cause of his demise, but whether that happened at the end of series 3 or series 33 was never defined. Contrary to a lot of the posts on the blog assuming that we’d chosen to kill him off, I didn’t want to write him out until I had to. And certainly right up until the shooting script of episode 8, Mitchell was still going to be undead and kicking when the credits rolled.

Despite his commitments to [The Hobbit], we were still planning to keep Mitchell ‘alive’. Perhaps, we thought, Wyndham could dispatch him back to Bolivia and maybe (though we had to concede it was pretty unlikely given what Aidan’s schedule would be for the next 3 years) we could get Mitchell back for an episode of series 7…?

But y’see, that Turner fella is smart. He knew that ending, while leaving the door open for him to return one day, would be ultimately unsatisfying. And so it was his decision – and with his encouragement – that we ended Mitchell’s story there.

See an interview with Aidan Turner below.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uMxWx6TMeY

In an earlier interview Turner said he would be back in Series 4 if filming dates could be worked out.