TV We're Not Watching: Being Erica

Here's the first installment of an irregular and probably obtuse series on shows that we're not watching, usually because they're not airing in the US, didn't get released on DVD or streaming services, or just got up and cancelled. First up, I reveal my feminine side by giving "Being Erica" its due.

(This article originally appeared on my old Xanga blog. I think. I'm too lazy to check. I'm also too lazy to write new articles, so I'm shamelessly regurgitating something I found in my old files. Welcome to blogging.)

I'm about three sober years into my recovery from soap opera addiction. It hasn't been easy staying on the wagon. Having good friends helps, but temptation is everywhere, from plot speculations buzzing about the blogosphere, to that Mecca of soapy operatic perdition, SoapNet.

SoapNet is a creation of ABC, and for the record, ABC soaps were far superior to their CBS or NBC counterparts before they got the axe. (And yes, that's an informed opinion from someone who used to be a morning shift master control operator, which functionally meant I was a professional daytime television-watcher. If asked, I can also provide developed opinions on just why Bill Getty is the worst producer on earth.) Every day, it faithfully rebroadcasts the morning's installments of every soap. Five-episode marathons are presented for the binge-inclined.

On its off-hours, SoapNet also serves as the pasture into which ABC Family and other associated networks place their stale movies of the week, Lifetime-wannabe productions starring middle-grade television actresses reevaluating their lives as they search for love before they cross the 30-year barrier. But a few years ago, in the midst of that muddle, was one bright-shining example of what good television drama can be.

"Being Erica" was billed as a SoapNet original, and that's true enough, if one discounts the existence of Canada (as I do). It's actually a CBC production that found a home at SoapNet to reach into the American market, and it provided a much-needed jolt of creativity and press for the network. Before the show, SoapNet's original offering was the truly bizarre General Hospital: Night Shift, a creepy and fascinating deconstruction of its parent show into all of its deeply flawed constituent parts. But the Age of Erica made all things soapy and new.

The show's premise doesn't read well on paper. Erica Strange (played by the toxically endearing Erin Karpluk, who I'd try to contact and woo if she weren't so obviously Canadian) is 32, and life isn't what she'd expected. She's single, lonely, unsuccessful in her career, and burdened with regret.

Sound depressing? Well, yes. Actually, it is. But she's just so darn likable in her dissatisfaction. Check out this snippet from the pilot:

She encounters the mysterious and overly-quotable Dr. Tom, a therapist who offers to help her overcome these difficulties by way of a radical therapy. With some hesitation, she agrees.

It's then when Erica starts to time travel.

I'm going to give you a second to let that sink in. It's not high-concept, speculative time travel like A.I. It's more Quantum Leap, within-one's-lifetime time travel, but when Erica leaps, it's into herself at a specific moment in her past. There, she's given the opportunity, with Dr. Tom's guidance, to address her mistakes. Slowly, she begins to reforge her present, and to hope for a better tomorrow. Past relational failures are explored, and if not always turned into glowing successes, Erica is given an opportunity for understanding and catharsis (you'll probably note I'm not using the term "closure," because it's not a term I use) she didn't have before.

Story through-lines were complicated by new mistakes or the consequences of changing history, but always there was a sense of optimism and acceptance at the heart of the show: acceptance of Erica's situation, of her past, and of who she is, but not in a superficial, after-school special kind of way that fogs the sense of personal responsibility or that condones intentional dysfunction. It's an understanding of who she truly is, and in that regard, it's a show that reaches into that complex psychic minefield of what's commonly called growing up.

Being Erica was universally appealing. Across all boundaries in our society, we all harbor regrets, and we all long to go back and change what we cannot change. In watching Erica be granted that opportunity, the audience is connected with her immediately, and very deeply. The writing was sharp, but even in its most blunt moments, the show's heart triumphed. And few dramas on television have any heart at all.

But it occurred to me recently, while thinking back on Erica reliving the end of one of her romantic relationships, that the concept might suffer from a silent, creeping narcissism. Erica's ultimate goal is actually self-serving, an inwardly-focused journey of self-improvement, mostly devoid of concern for others (although the show in its second year appears headed toward treatments of the darker consequences of Dr. Tom's experiment). Does the lure of changing the past blind us to the present, and rob us of the real hope and excitement of the future? Or does Erica's grand experience teach us to grapple with our past, examine it, and understand how we have arrived in the present, and how to steer toward the future?

Examining the life and times of Erica Strange may tell. Oh, wait. Except we can't. Because SoapNet doens't air the show anymore, and all four seasons are only available on DVD in Canada. And Netflix doesn't have it. Heavy sigh.

Ah, well. It was a good excuse to recycle an old post. And that, my friends, is all we can ask.