Our Werewolves Are Different / Live-Action TV

Many different forms of wolfing out. ^{L-R, top-to-bottom} Monroe, Deucalion, Robert "RJ" James, and Enid Sinclair

Types of werewolves in live-action TV.

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• Wolfie the werewolf from Beetleborgs is treated more like a house pet than a monster at Hillhurst, although in one episode he accidentally bit Jara and turned her into a werewolf.

• In Being Human, werewolves have to change during the full moon. Changing is a slow, agonizing process. They turn into giant, bipedal wolf humanoids that can tear apart even vampires. In the days before and after their change, they have heightened hearing and smell. The more times they change, the stronger and tougher they get, to the point that some can rival vampires even in human form. They generally do not have the ability to change at will, until the fourth season, in which George forces himself to transform without the full moon, and as he is stuck halfway through the transformation he does not have the benefits of the healing properties of a natural transformation and he dies of organ failure.

• Being Human (US) makes werewolves quadrupedal and add a slight level of agitation and unease around the full moon. Werewolves generally have no memory of their actions as a wolf, only finding out some of the results afterward when their human body cannot handle something their werewolf did (such as eating his own poop for Josh); Nora remembers everything her wolf does, possibly as a result of the suppressed memories of the abuse she suffered from her family and ex-boyfriend. Werewolves also do not generally form packs, as they are only successful if the "pack" is an actual family of blood relations. The American version also introduces "pure-bred" werewolves, who are born werewolves, and experience the agitation infected that werewolves feel around the full moon all the time, ingesting wolfsbane to take the edge off. Josh spends the first two seasons seeking a cure for his lycanthropy, assuming it is a medical issue, until Nora reveals she has learned that it is a curse that can only be lifted by killing the werewolf that cursed him in the first place. Josh succeeds in doing so (and finding out that it only works on one generation and Nora is still a werewolf) and spends Season 3 as a human, until he is cursed, once again, and this time his sire is killed by someone else before he can lift the curse, again. However, something goes wrong:
  • For some initially unexplained reason, implied as being turned by the pure-bred Liam or being attacked by his inner wolf when helping Sally fight the witch Donna in her own pocket dimension, Josh remains transformed after his first full moon after being cursed, again. For the next several months, Aidan and Nora do their best to keep him distracted and locked up until the next full moon when he turns back into a human and he trades places with Nora. Sally finally escapes her imprisonment by Donna and learns that she has new witch powers (it's complicated) which she uses to fix the curse on Josh, turning him "normal", again. However, the spell isn't properly placed, and Josh feels agitated constantly, until he nearly transforms in broad daylight and discovers that he can transform without the full moon, and without ill effect. This leads to him being kidnapped by a pack of werewolves who he and Nora tried to befriend to turn a bunch of humans into werewolves like him to more easily eliminate the vampires who after Season 3's flu (it's complicated) have come back in force, a thought that horrifies him. After Sally experiences being a werewolf in an alternate timeline (again, complicated), she manages to "fix" the curse once more, helping Josh confront his inner wolf who is rightfully afraid of Josh for having spent the past several years trying to suppress or outright eliminate him. Josh enters a "truce" with his wolf, allowing his humanity to be in charge at all times except the full moon when the wolf gets his chance at freedom as it was originally.

• Big Wolf on Campus follows the life of good Wolf Man Tommy Dawkins. He transforms at will or involuntarily when stressed; he also is forced to transform during the full moon. Tommy keeps full control of his mind at these times. Lycanthropy is, again, transmitted by bite but if a person is fed a Wolfsbane potion before their first full moon they can avoid becoming a werewolf. Most other werewolves are evil and part of a syndicate of evil werewolves. In fact, it's demonstrated that becoming a werewolf in general makes you evil. Curiously, Lori and Merton were the only ones who actually went evil when they became werewolves. In contrast, Tommy acts as a town protector: it wasn't explained why Tommy didn't become evil, but BWOC was never big on explanations anyway. It seems to be hinted that Tommy didn't turn evil because he was bitten at the full moon, not giving the werewolfish nature a chance to dig in over time. For example, during a What If? scenario, Tommy's place was taken by someone else when the wolf bit him. He wasn't precisely evil, just a massive dick. And he was like that before he was bitten.

• Werewolves occasionally pop up in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and sister show Angel in different varieties. They debut in Buffy Season 2, where they are shown as fur-covered, clawed, and humanoid with a fully lupine head (i.e. a man in a suit). In Season 3, with the advent of better budget, they turn into fur-covered Wolf Man Running on All Fours with a more humanoid face (like a lupine great ape). In Season 8, they're a mix of the two: a fully lupine head, bipedal but running on four legs (similar to the Lyncanthropus Exterus on Angel).
  • The show's lycanthropy can be transmitted by bite regardless of transformation state, displays a heightened sense of smell, and a vulnerability to silver and deadly injuries, like a ripped throat or bullet wounds. They change three times every moon cycle: the night of the full moon and the two surrounding nights.
  • The most well-known werewolf characters are Oz (who was bitten by his younger cousin Jordy and learned to suppress his normal transformations after a long trip to Tibet), Veruca (a minor love interest of Oz's) and Nina.
  • For most of the two TV series, Buffyverse werewolves were depicted as totally animalistic, predatory, and lethally non-sentient, with the only way to stop them killing people being to restrain or cage them during the transformed period. In the post-show comics, however, Oz was trained by a group of spiritually-advanced werewolves in Tibet who had learned to retain their intelligence and morals while shifted.

• Charmed never really plays the werewolf trope straight, but still has several examples:
  • The girls once changed into wolf-like beasts due to two blue moons happening in the same year, coinciding with their periods. Or something. Apparently this will only happen once every fifty years. During their transformations they attack Whitelighters due to their animosity toward the Elders at the time. They're never referred to as "werewolves," though.
  • Another episode has them fight a Wendigo. It's mistaken for a werewolf, but the fact is that the show sort of combines the legends: people become wendigoes through cannibalism, but also by being bitten by one (as happens to Piper), and they hunt during the "three nights of the full moon."
  • There's also an episode featuring an woman who was cursed to become a wolf every night, while her boyfriend becomes an owl during the day, meaning that they can never be human together for more than a few seconds. The spell winds up being broken by the end of the episode.
  • Finally there's Enola, a Magical Native American who can turn into a wolf as one of her powers.

• The Creepshow story "Bad Wolf Down" features three WWII G.I.s who become werewolves. Between the three of them, three different anatomical variants - one Wolf-Man type, one shaggy wolf-headed biped, and one quadrupedal bear-like shape - are represented.
  • The 2020 Christmas special features Robert Weston, a werewolf who is created when a gypsy neighbor curses him for brushing his teeth too loud.

• An episode of Dinosaurs had Robbie tell a scary story to his baby bro where he gets bitten by a rabid caveman and becomes a were-man. (Were means man anyway, but you shouldn't go to this show for one hundred percent accuracy).

• Doctor Who has had several different examples:
  • "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy" featured the Vulpanan, Mags, a lycanthropic girl who could be forced to transform by nothing more than an "old devil moon" stage lamp gel.
    • Mags returned as a companion in the Big Finish audio dramas, in a story arc centred around her wanting control over her transformations. The second in her initial trilogy, The Moons of Vulpana, explored her native culture and her world's past.
  • "Tooth and Claw" involves an alien intelligence that could possess people and turn them into a Wolf Man form, and jump (or reproduce) between bodies by biting. Called a Lupine Wavelength Haemovariform, acts like a sentient virus, and had designs on possessing Queen Victoria.
  • A society of werewolves also appears in the Big Finish audio Loups-Garoux, in which the Doctor notes that "There are so many forms of lycanthropy", presumably to avoid any problems with continuity.

• The Dresden Files TV adaptation had an episode around werewolves that went with the more classical Hollywood version. It was transmitted by bite, and those afflicted were weak to silver, while still being a curse. The only cure was to kill nine other werewolves, from the same curse line.

• Game of Thrones: Although wolves are common, wargs can take control of all kinds of animals, such Orell's eagle and a Thenn who can control an owl. Bran even wargs into Hodor on occassion.

• In Grimm, they are called blutbaden, though are not technically werewolves, but wolf-like Wesen; the general term used for creatures on the show. They can only be seen by a Grimm and you don't need silver to kill them. Also, the colour red is their Berserk Button.
  • Like most Wesen, their "woge" form is humanoid. The main changer are the wolfish face and the clawed hands. For reference, the only Wesen who actually appear like an animal in their Wesen form are the Jägerbar (females more than males).
  • There are several other canine kinds of Wesen (in fact, canine-type Wesen are the second most varied category after primates): Schakal, Anubis, Wildesheer, Hundjäger, Höllentier, and Coyotl.
  • The episode "Lycanthropia" features a Blutbaden genetic disease, which causes them to become a savage killer (and even more powerful) during the three nights of the full moon. It's also apparently contagious to normal humans, although it causes Wu to become a generic Beast Man rather than recognisably lupine.

• Hammer House of Horror: The woodsman and his werewolf brood in the episode "Children of the Full Moon".

• Jiro/Garulu from Kamen Rider Kiva is a Wolfen, one of the 13 Demon Races represented in the series. He can voluntarily change from human to Wolfen form, and feeds by using his claws to pull the soul from a human's body and devour it. Thanks to his supernatural origin, his human form seems to have superhuman levels of strength, speed, and endurance, as well as an enhanced sense of smell (and a fondness for coffee). And in an extreme twist of transformation tropes, as part of his involvement in the titular character's transformations Jiro becomes the sword of Garulu Form.

• In Li'l Horrors, Claudia seems to exist permanently in her Wolf Man form, but lives in fear of transforming into a sweet little girl every full moon.

• On Lost Girl, werewolves are referred to as shifters. They turn into actual wolves and seem to have control over when they transform.

• The Munsters had Eddie. Eddie is a werewolf but the only indication of such (besides his Unusual Ears and Cute Little Fangs) is his sometimes-catchphrase "Awooooooooo-tragious!" In one of the feature-length movies, he finally turns into his wolf-form and he looks like a Lon Chaney Jr. style werewolf. In Mockingbird Lane he is shown to turn into a basic, albeit large, wolf on full moons, not being able to control it (although he only transforms once).

• Mystery Science Theater 3000. Repeat after me: "He's a werecrow! A WERECROW!"

• Once Upon a Time retcons Little Red Riding Hood's backstory to include a werewolf rather than a regular wolf. Red herself turns out to be the werewolf; however, her eponymous hood can prevent her transformation. Later on, she developed the ability to retain sentience in wolf form and control her actions.

• The Netflix show The Order has a secret society called The Knights of St Christopher who are all werewolves and are sworn to protect the world from practitioners of dark magic. The Knights have several hides that attach themselves to a person known as a champion, turning them into a werewolf. When a champion dies the hide of their wolf returns to its crate awaiting the next champion. The hides all have their own names and personalities as well as skills passed down from champion to champion. For example, Lilith can read Sumerian because her wolf, Timber can. They have no connection to the moon, no aversion to silver, and, for the most part, they do have control over their shifts after a little practice. They are bipedal and hear a ringing sound when in proximity to dark magic.

• Out of Jimmy's Head has Yancey, the alien sister of the main character, dating one. He's harmless for the most part, but does retain canine features and strengths.

• Henry Foss from Sanctuary (2007) is revealed to be a werewolf-like Abnormal, who was found on the moors as a child and was raised away from his kind. At first, the changes are involuntary (and don't have to be triggered by anything specific at all, as it's explained to simply be a new metamorphic phase his body has entered), but he eventually comes to accept his 'bad' side and learns to control it. He doesn't like the term "werewolf", however, and prefers to be described as a hyper-accelerated protean, or HAP for short. Later, in England, he discovers a facility that secretly houses only HAPs and keeps them medicated to prevent transformation. In order to keep everyone in line, the leader of the facility gives anyone who doesn't want to take the standard drugs a different medication that makes them kill after transforming, which convinces everyone else that their abnormal side is to be feared and kept hidden. Henry eventually shows everyone that they can control the transformations and are not automatically violent when in HAP form.

• Spoofed in one hilarious episode of Seinfeld when Jerry stars shaving in order to appear hairless to a girl he's dating. Bad idea as Kramer points out (showing himself as example, much to Jerry's horror) that then the hairs start growing thicker and larger. Jerry stops shaving and this causes him to be gradually turning into a Wolf Man parody.

• Supernatural:
  • Werewolves are of the mortal/cursed variety. As for their appearance: slightly longer fingernails and fangs is about it. Pull out their teeth and file down their nails and they'd be indistinguishable from any other Ax-Crazy psycho. They always remove the heart from a dead victim.
  • There are also shifters (Shapeshifting Doppelgangers), rougarou (humans who transform into hideous, cannibalistic monsters) and okami (who look like humans with wolf teeth, have superhuman athletic ability and have Nigh-Invulnerability against anything other than a bamboo dagger blessed by a Shinto priest). The episode "All Dogs Go To Heaven" introduces skinwalkers, who turn into normal, domestic dogs. The skinwalker can be passed by a bite, and across the US skinwalkers are entering homes as family pets, ready for a signal to turn their families, creating a skinwalker army. Good boy, Rover?

• Wolf themes show up intermittently throughout Super Sentai and by extension Power Rangers. Ninja Sentai Kakuranger is the first such series to feature anything wolf-themed, with the wolf-headed Jūshō Blue Rogan (and later the Chōninjū God Rogan) for Ninja Blue, Saizō, but he does not turn into a wolf during the course of the series, and neither does his counterpart Billy in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers who gets the Wolf Ninjazord and the Blue Shogunzord. That being said...
  • In Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger, the anthropomorphic wolf Duke Org Rouki is actually Shirogane, one of the first Gao Warriors who was sealed away by his teammates after being possessed by Rouki's spirit. His Power Rangers Wild Force counterpart Merrick Baliton is in a similar situation. To seal away the evil Master Org, Merrick donned the Mask of Zen-Aku, transforming him into the evil Org at the cost of his own identity. In the modern day, Zen-Aku only turns back into the human Merrick during the new moon or a lunar eclipse, allowing the modern Power Rangers to free him from the curse.
  • In Juken Sentai Gekiranger, Gou Fukami is a Juken user of the Geki-Ju Wolf-Ken style, who used a forbidden technique to stop his former teammate Rio from being corrupted by the evil Rin Juken style, but it backfired and trapped him in the form of an anthropomorphic wolf. The three Gekirangers manage to cure him of his affliction, and he becomes their fourth member. His Power Rangers Jungle Fury counterpart RJ has the same sort of thing going on for him, but to a lesser degree.

• Teen Wolf has several variations.
  • Werewolves are sub-categorized into Alphas (dominant), Betas (subordinate) and Omegas (lone). Only an Alpha can actually infect a person with lycanthropy. The werewolf trait can be, but is not always, passed from parent to child, so werewolf families exist. It is possible for an individual werewolf to change their status. For example, a Beta can become an Alpha by killing one. This is not easy however, since Alphas possess much greater power than Betas and Omegas. It is also possible for a Beta to ascend to Alphahood through strength of will and character, but this is shown to be extremely rare, as the main protagonist is the only character to achieve this so far.
  • Werewolves transform when angry, aroused, or otherwise feeling strong emotions or increased heart rate and can tap into advanced senses, reflexes, coordination, regenerative abilities, and strength, even when not transformed. Emotional stress can trigger a transformation on non-full moon days, but pain can also keep betas from transforming and can even revert them back to human form. There are differing levels of the curse as well, some being more animalistic.
  • Nordic Blue Monkshood (or wolfsbane) has the ability to kill a werewolf when encased in a bullet. Another form can cause pain and breathing problems to a werewolf when one is in close proximity and perhaps trigger a transformation by raising the heart rate. However, under certain conditions, wolfsbane can even be beneficial to werewolves.

• The half-wolves of The 10th Kingdom. Although only one example is extant in the series, Wolf, judging by him the half-wolves are hereditary Wolf Men with heightened senses who live in packs. They change only on the three nights of the full moon, and while changed have no control over their actions and no memory of what they have done. Wolf has lupine mannerisms even when in human form. Even in human form, they have tails, which serve as an erogenous zone and change size depending on the cycle of the moon in an obvious menstruation correlation.

• True Blood has werewolves who shift into a normal-looking wolf form. They can shift anytime they want but pack leaders have the ability to force a shift on other weres. They don't appear to have any special vulnerability to silver but ordinary bullets can kill them.

• The Vampire Diaries introduces werewolves in the second season, though it had been hinting at their existence for a while. It's part-heredity, part-curse: those of particular bloodlines - including the Lockwood family - are potential werewolves, who suffer from anger control issues especially around the full moon. The curse kicks in if they kill a human (even in self-defence); they will immediately become a full werewolf, painfully transforming into a monstrous wolf during the full moon. The weakness to silver is a myth, but wolfsbane can burn and weaken them. According to legend, they were once able to shift at will, but were cursed into becoming slaves of the moon (though this is later revealed to be false). They retain some degree of Super-Strength and Healing Factor even in human form, though nowhere near as powerful as vampires; in wolf form, on the other hand, they are considerably stronger than them, and their bite produces a venom that will cause them a long, painful death; because of this, the vampires hunted them almost to extinction.

• Werewolves in Wellington Paranormal need to be in view of the full moon to fully transform, so several live in Wellington for its heavy cloud cover.

• FOX, in their inaugural season, aired a series, Werewolf (1987), which featured werewolves not linked to the full moon. "It's really random, there's no kind of schedule or cycle....but it's always preceded by the sign of the pentacle on my palm." In a line in the original script that didn't make it into the aired pilot, Eric's friend tells him, 'the moon is always full, you just can't always see it." A pentacle first appears as a pale raised scar; as the change approaches, it turns red and moments before the change blood begins to drip dramatically from it. This is likely an homage to the pentacle-on-the-palm from the original The Wolf Man.

• The fake documentary Werewolves The Dark Survivors features a pack of werewolves who have a non-lethal strain of rabies and porphyria (which causes them to crave blood). Their transformation is simply their skin tightening when certain toxins reach a critical point every couple months or so (some use wolfsbane to force a change) making it look like their nails, teeth, and hair are growing. It seems unlikely that they're invulnerable in any way and the full moon is just the only time when ordinary humans can see their monthly hunts.

• What We Do in the Shadows (2019): Werewolves in this series are huge, anthropomorphic wolves that can walk on their hind legs. They display typical animal behaviour, even in human form, like marking their territory with urine. They have the classic weakness to silver. While the full moon is usually required for them to transform, at least one of them can actively trigger his transformation even without the full moon by simply imagining the full moon being there (he has a vivid imagination). They're also quite dog-like, getting distracted by things such as passing cars. Nandor uses this to his advantage in the vampire-werewolf duel atop the abandoned Circuit City, hurling a squeaky toy off the roof and sending the werewolf chasing after it.

• The Wizards of Waverly Place episode "Beware Wolf" has Justin kiss a girl who is a werewolf and turn into one himself. And the werewolf acts like a dog, when he is in his human form. And kissing a werewolf that's a "mutt" will turn you into a werewolf, but kissing a werewolf that's a "pure bred" won't.

• The main character in Wolfblood, Maddy, states that they are Wolfbloods, not werewolves. While they transform on the full Moon and have lupine reflexes and senses, they transform into a full wolf, not a man-wolf hybrid, and can't turn people into Wolfbloods by biting them. Its a family inherited power. The factor of "controlling the beast" is important, as if one can't, they will transform when angry and may struggle to control their wolf form but if one can they can transform at will and are mostly able to control themselves in wolf form. They also have various quirks such as being really tired on new Moons, having heightened senses even in human form, an odd state that seems to have further heightened senses and a mentality closer to wolf but is still their human body, albeit with wolf eyes, during an eclipse and two unusual sixth senses, one of which allows the user to see through nature and is regarded as a Forbidden Technique by tame wolfbloods because it makes the user more animal, although an occasional use doesn't hurt and the protagonists use it on rare occasion and one which can trace information about wolfbloods' history but, being an analogue to psychic powers, may or may not exist.

• The short-lived series Wolf Lake revolved around a community of lycanthropes based (roughly) on Native American werewolf mythology.

• One of the prime twists of Wolf Like Me is that one of the two leads, Mary, is actually a werewolf, and has been ever since she was attacked and bitten by one during a trip to Prague. The lycanthropy itself follows the old cinema tropes such as the full-moon transformations and Alternate Identity Amnesia, though Mary's bite mark is still not fully healed. Season 2 also reveals that it can be inherited, as Mary in wolf form gives birth to a pup. While Mary's wolf form is only described as "a wolf", she's more in-line with the quadrupedal beast from An American Werewolf in London.

• Young Dracula is somewhat inconsistent with its werewolves. A baby is shown to turn hairy at moonlight and as a child the same character is shown to turn into a dog at night but an adult werewolf is implied to be mostly human with a lot of hair, as it is implied that the Countess was sleeping with him in that form. This is complicated as we don't get much exposition on werewolves and Wolfie, the aforementioned baby and child, is a half-vampire half-werewolf hybrid and while the effect of that isn't stated it is heavily implied that he is more than one or the other.

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