Stars: Sam Witwer, Meaghan Rath, Sam Huntington, Sarah Allen, Gianpaolo Venuta, Andreas Apergis
Writer: Chris Dingess
Director: Jerry Ciccoritti
Network: Syfy, Airs Monday nights
Airdate: February 7, 2011

So far, the U.S. BEING HUMAN is following the broad strokes of the U.K. original. “Wouldn’t It Be Nice (If We Were Human)” expands a bit on the werewolf education subplot by having the mentor figure, here called Ray (Andreas Apergis), turn out to be violently anti-vampire, which provides a bit of extra suspense here.

Of course, werewolf Josh (Sam Huntington) doesn’t know this about Ray when Ray introduces himself – in the woods, where Josh is waking up the morning after a full moon. At first, Josh wants nothing to do with this stranger, even if Ray does seem full of helpful hints about how to avoid hurting anyone during the change (and also how to get quickly clothed and cleaned the next day).

However, when vampire Aidan (Sam Witwer) urges Josh to at least listen to what Ray has to say, Josh relents, decides he likes Ray and soon invites the other werewolf to stay at the house for awhile. At this point, Aidan has misgivings, but he’s also got issues of his own – Rebecca (Sarah Allen), the ex-girlfriend Aidan accidentally turned during sex, shows up begging for help. She says she can’t bear killing any more and wants Aidan to show her how to survive as a vampire who doesn’t kill humans. However, what Rebecca really seems to want is blood-soaked sex with Aidan, which Aidan can’t resist, even though he knows this leads to bloodlust towards humans.

Meanwhile, Ghost Sally (Meaghan Rath) discovers that she can perform acts of telekinesis. She also finds that she can be heard, or at least sensed, by erstwhile best friend Bridget. Aidan encourages Sally to see the budding romance between Bridget and Sally’s fiancé Danny (Gianpaolo Venuta) as a good thing, so Sally gives her blessing to the relationship.

The subplot with Ray is intriguing, as it gives Josh somewhat darker colors in his human state – egged on by Ray and influenced by the waxing of the moon, Josh winds up beating on a vampire. Granted, the vamp in question is acting pretty threatening to Josh immediately beforehand, but Josh’s response goes beyond a tactical beat-down.

Meanwhile, Ray gets verbally aggressive with Aidan. The werewolf mentor character in the U.K. version proved fairly self-defeating in his attempts to win Josh over, and it doesn’t look as if the U.S. Ray is going to be any smarter, but Apergis gives an intriguing performance and it will be interesting to see if this subplot leads to bigger things.

“Wouldn’t It Be Nice” has some good tension to it, and the messy vampire-on-vampire sex is fun, if not the shocker it might have been in pre-BUFFY/TRUE BLOOD days. The episode also gets us to engage with Josh and Sally further, which is likewise a healthy development.

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