Stars: Sam Witwer, Meaghan Rath, Sam Huntington, Mark Pellegrino, Gianpaolo Venuta
Writer: Nancy Won
Director: Charles Biname
Network: Syfy, Mondays @ 9 PM
Airdate: February 14, 2011

So far, Syfy’s BEING HUMAN is following the original BBC BEING HUMAN fairly closely. “The End of the World As We Knew It” is the U.S. episode where two of our three protagonists find out how they got the way they are – a werewolf and a ghost – while our third lead finds out what his vampire sire is planning for the world.

ut another way, Josh (Sam Huntington) learns that fellow werewolf Ray is the one who turned him two years ago, which causes Josh to become hysterical; Sally (Meaghan Rath) discovers that her erstwhile fiancé Danny (Gianpaolo Venuta) shoved her down the stairs in a fit of jealous rage, which causes Sally to become hysterical and have a house-wrecking fit of telekinesis; Aiden (Sam Witwer) is told by his police lieutenant sire Bishop (Mark Pellegrino) that Bishop is having specific individuals – the willing, wealthy and/or influential – “recruited” as vampires to further his plans of one day having vamps exist openly among humans.

There are some logic flaws here, but some existed in the original as well. After listening to Josh bitch more or less nonstop about being a werewolf, it’s a great mystery why Ray supposes outing himself as Josh’s maker will be in any way helpful. It was a head-scratcher in the British edition and makes no more sense here. Josh reacts exactly the way anybody who has been watching him for an hour a week (i.e., the viewer), let alone someone who has been living with him, would expect.

There is something of the opposite problem with the aftermath of Sally discovering Danny killed her. Danny, of course, is aware of what he did, but while we know that Sally’s the one who trashed his home, why Danny (so far unaware of any supernatural goings-on) suddenly begins to suspect spectral actions and doesn’t call the cops goes unanswered. We’re with his girlfriend on this one – given that Danny doesn’t know yet that Sally is hovering around, why the heck doesn’t he call 911?

Then there’s Aiden and Bishop and a vampire priest. The priest, who has been a vampire for six years (he was on the bring of death from lymphoma when turned), is now recruiting from hospital patients. Aiden doesn’t want anyone hunting humans at his place of employment. Fair enough. However, when Aiden and the priest get into an argument about why the priest is doing what he does, and the priest cites his absolute certainty that there is no life after death, it seems like Aiden’s roommate situation – that is, sharing a house with a ghost who, within the show’s mythology, proves life after death – would be relevant to the conversation.

Then there’s Bishop’s big plan. Unlike the vampires of TRUE BLOOD, the blood drinkers of BEING HUMAN (except Aiden) have no way of reassuring the human population that they aren’t lethal, because in fact they are. Since Bishop’s grand scheme will need huge numbers of vampires in existence for it to work, and he doesn’t seem close to having those numbers yet, why is he confiding in someone so clearly unsympathetic to his goals?

Logic glitches aside, Aiden, Sally and especially Josh continue to seem so depressed that in some respects, BEING HUMAN right now feels somewhat more like a drama about extremely depressed psychiatric patients sharing communal housing than it does a supernatural show that’s meant to have a light, ironic side. We do want to see what happens next, but it will be smoother sailing once the characters stop bemoaning their fates and get on with at least being non-human.

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