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BEING ERICA
Season 4

E4

Being Erica


  1. Dr Who?
  2. Osso Barko
  3. Baby Mama
  4. Born This Way
  5. Sins Of The Father
  6. If I Could Turn Back Time
  7. Being Ethan
  8. Please, Please Tell Me Now
  9. Erica's Adventures In Wonderland
  10. Purim
  11. Dr Erica




Erica Strange - Erin Karpluk


Dr Tom - Michael Riley

Julianne - Reagan Pasternak

Adam - Adam Fergus


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OTHER TIME TRAVEL SHOWS
Doctor Who
Journeyman
Timecop
Daybreak

OTHER SELF HELP SHOWS
Eli Stone




Dr Who?

Erica is now training to be a time-travel therapist like Doctor Tom, but the first patient she is given is her Josh, the man her sister is divorcing and who wants to have nothing to do with her.

It's really all about Erica even though the patient is supposed to be about Josh. Erica time travels back to various points in her relationship with her brother-in-law soon not to be and discovers why they never got along. This is really gazing at Erica's navel, visiting scenes that we have already visited as well as a spring break new scene and dealing with Erica's family and friends. It's familiar to fans of the show, but makes no allowances for anyone coming to the show fresh.

Erin Karpluk is as charming as ever and Michael Riley as urbane, but the script doesn't do them any favours and really doesn't add anything. The message of the piece is that to help someone you have to treat them as equals and understand them, which means communication is key. Not exactly groundbreaking stuff.



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Osso Barko

Erica warps back to her first day as Julianne's assistant in a bid to understand her business partner.

We're all the same and if we talk to each other we'll solve lots of the problems we have. It's not a million miles away from last week's message, but the manner in which it was put across was even more facile as all Julianne's character flaws are put right by having a single chat with her sister. Yeah right.

This brings back a lot of the characters from the first season and so it plays to the loyal viewers, but again fails to include any new viewers.



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Baby Mama

Erica's sister is pregnant and everyone is happy with the exception of her mother. Dr Tom sends Erica back into her mother's past to find out why.

BEING ERICA throws up the biggest piece of melodramatic tosh that it's ever come up with in this story. The idea that her mother could have bottled up a secret this big for so long without anyone ever suspecting is beyond acceptance and that unfortunately spoils what is a fun trip into a past beyond Erica's time.



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Born This Way

There's a new, macho ownership over at the River Rock publishing house and Erica's ex-co worker Brent is having a hard time fitting in. Erica learns about the need to conform.

Sometimes there is no right answer. That's the message of this tale in which 'being yourself' is as wrong as 'trying to fit in'. Brent's attempts to fit in with the macho men at River Rock is more believeable than the nonsense about the french-speaking exchange student which is only there to add the counterpoint to the argument and thus never comes over as anything except false.

It's nice to see her old school girlfriends back though.



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Sins Of The Father

Dr Tom's therapist sends him back in time to examine why his engagement crashed and burned.

The focus shifts from Erica to Dr Tom and his fear of throwing himself into anything outside of his work. Quite apart from the shock of seeing Michael Riley sans beard and with a poor choice of haircut, it's nice to see him as the focus of the story for a change.

Sadly, the psychology of the piece is as simple as 'it's good to talk' - hardly the most profound piece of advice that the show could come up with.



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If I Could Turn Back Time

Erica can be a little bit controlling at times and so when Adam announces that he's giving up school for a foreman's job she messes up the conversation. Dr Tom gives her the power to control time, but every time she redoes the day the outcome is the same.

It's GROUNDHOG DAY! Yes, Erica is getting the chance to redo everything several times over in the hope of getting it right by changing how she handles things. The one thing she doesn't plan on is the fact that the problem is no more in her than it is in her stars.

Adam's reaction to everything that Erica does for him is exactly the same and comes across as being completely unreasonable. In fact, he's acting a lot like Dr Tom did in the last episode. More realistic is Dr Tom's sadly allowing Erica to make all the mistakes that he knows she will. It's another nicely understated moment from Michael Riley.



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Being Ethan

Struggling with her break-up with Adam, Erica bumps into Ethan and determines to fix his lovelife by setting him up with a friend in the past.

Like doesn't attract like. You can't predict love, only hold onto it when you find it. There is nothing shocking or new in any of this. The trip into the past is pretty perfunctory and not even interesting, doing little more than remind us what a dull character Ethan was.

On the other hand, Juliet and Brent getting it together is a nice development.



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Please, Please Tell Me Now

Erica's relationship with Kai from the future leads her to ask some serious questions about her present as she knows she only has a few years to live.

This episode struggles to interest despite the fact that it deals with some serious issues about mortality and living with the fact that you know your life is coming to an end. OK, it's not about degenerative disease or anything, but how does your outlook on life change with knowing that you have much less of it left than you thought?

Unfortunately, it deals with this through a frankly obvious business deal dilemma that is an insult to the audience intelligence (we all know which way she is going to go) and then has future Erica show up to infodump present Erica into feeling that it's all going to be all right.

It's a shame because the future knowledge implications had much more promise.



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Erica's Adventures In Wonderland

To help Erica choose between Kai and Ethan, Dr Tom introduces her to her perfect man.

Nobody's perfect and we should accept people for what the are is the less than startling insight into human relationships in this episode. Fortunately, the episode itself is much better than the message that it carries, mainly thanks to Erin Karpluk who is at her most appealing here.

The trip into the alternate reality where Erica finds herself living with the man who is everything she thought he ought to be (and a whole lot more) is trite and obvious and far below Dr Tom's normal quality of therapy. The subsequent confrontations with Kai and Adam, however, are excellent and the moment where Dr Tom and Erica dance suggests that perhaps he is her perfect man. That, though, is not what was intended.

These moments are tender, well observed and display the affection with which the writers hold their characters and remind the audience just how nice the characters all are.



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Purim

In order to help Erica deal with a difficult relationship, Dr Tom sends her back to revisit a celebration in her past, and the last visit of a difficult relative.

Considering that this is the penultimate episode of the show, it's a severely lightweight one that harkens back to the 'issue of the week' episodes of the first season.

It's not bad, it's just lightweight and has very little to say about anything.



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Dr Erica

Erica learns that Dr Tom will not be able to see her once he ceases to be a therapist. She handles this badly and meets Leo, locked in the corridor to his past life.

It's the final episode and anyone expecting to learn who, or what, is behind the time travelling therapists is in for a disappointment. BEING ERICA has never been about the how and chances are the writers never really knew about that side of it as they never made anything more than hints.

It's certainly a tearful parting for the cast, specifically Erin Karpluk and Michael Riley on whose shoulders the show has rested since the start and the end at least leaves them in a place that the audience would want.

Unfortunately, the rest of it is bitty and disjointed with plot threads, most specifically the one with Erica's brother unable to move through the door that is his death, not given enough time to be properly dealt with.

BEING ERICA leaves us with one last lesson; when one thing finishes, another begins.



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