What I'm Watching

This is Being Erica.  I love this show!  Love LOVE LOVE!  It's smart and funny and addictive.  It makes you think, it makes you cry.  Being Erica is from Canada, shown on the CBC Network.  It's currently in it's third season, but you can find seasons 1 and 2 on Hulu.  After it airs in Canada during their regular season, the SOAPnet Network airs it.  (For those who don't know, that's the network that shows all the daytime soaps during the evening and weekends, etc.)  Being Erica isn't on until midnight on Wednesday's (on Comcast; on satellite it's a better time slot), so I don't usually get to see it then.  But I did find it on Hulu!  (Thanks, Kate!)

Here's their description:
"Erica Strange is 32 years old, perpetually single, and stuck in a series of dead-end jobs.  But she's been given an amazing gift:  the opportunity to relive regrets from her past, enabling her to change the present.  Guided by the mysterious Dr. Tom, she weaves through present and past, realizing she needs to take control of her own destiny."
While that is a good description, I also like how they describe it in a commercial:
"This is Erica.  Your average, complicated, 30-something in therapy with a not-so-average therapist, Dr. Tom.  His specialty - time travel therapy.  Erica doesn't talk about her past, she relives it.  Literally."

The show stars Erin Karpluk as Erica Strange (see picture).  She is so relate-able.  She's not perfect, she messes things up, she doesn't have all the answers, she gets embarrassed, she gets drunk, she picks the wrong guy, she gets frustrated with her therapy and her family and friends, though she loves them.  She's quite real. 
Michael Riley is Dr. Tom (he's on the left in the picture).  He likes to quote everybody from singers to philosophers, anything that relates to the current crisis. 
Erica's new love interest and partner in therapy is Adam, played by Adam Fergus.  He is HOT (he's on the right in the picture).  He is Irish (for real and in the show) and has an adorable accent.  He is very fun to watch.  And it's great to watch him and Erica fumble around in the beginning of their relationship just like real people would, not like typical tv couples. 
Erica's business partner, Julianne, is played by Reagan Pasternak.  She's great and grating.  She is un-apologetically demanding in business and uses air quotes liberally and text language in real life.  For example, when asking a waiter to hold their table while they go check an email, she actually says "we'll BRB" (be right back). 

On the most recent episode, Erica had to deal with an old friend, Jenny, and how her mishaps had altered Erica's life.  And not for the better.  Erica's therapy helped her to realize that maybe being friends with Jenny wasn't in her best interest at this point in her life.  How many of us haven't been faced with a similar situation?  At the end of the episode, there is always a summary of sorts.  This one was:
"Friendship...  It begins when two people choose each other.  But what happens when we outgrow the choice?  When little by little, our paths diverge, our needs change.  And one day we wake up and realize that we need to choose something different?"

Another episode ended with:
"Thoughts become words.  Words become actions.  Actions become habit.  Habits become character.  And character becomes destiny."

It makes me think.  I hope you all check it out.  Enjoy!