BEING ERICA

(Pic: Erin Karpluk as Erica Strange)

New series is good choice for the Hallmark Channel. (Review by Caroline Smart)

Being Erica on the Hallmark Channel (DSTV channel 108) runs every Thursday at 21h00.

Starring Erin Karpluk as Erica Strange, a pretty but somewhat immature and impulsive 32 year-old who is still trying to find her way in life, the series poses the following: Life all comes down to the choices we made in the past and what have we achieved. If you could go back and do it all differently, would you still be you?

While searching for some answers in her current muddle of a life, Erica gets connected with the enigmatic Dr Tom. A therapy session with him goes along the normal lines before he asks her to write a list of all her regrets – things she could change if she could. Next thing she knows, she’s catapulted back into the past and given the opportunity to do just that – change things.

Featuring a quirky opening title sequence with a series of doors in a white space out of which Erica appears at various ages, each episode takes her along a different journey to various stages of her youth. I’ve only watched two episodes but in those I’ve seen, this process gets a bit convoluted and one can easily get confused as to what really happened and what she would like to have happened.

Erin Karpluk is bright and sassy as the warm-hearted and impulsive Erica while Michael Riley gives just the right touch of other-worldliness as Dr Tom.

It’s an interesting concept for a TV series and the characters are well cast. The publicity material likens the series as an “Ally McBeal meets Bridget Jones”. It serves to appeal to the Channel's core target audience of 30+ females.

Being Erica is written by Aaron Martin, James Hurst, Daegan Fryklind and Michael MacLennan. Directors are Holly Dale, Chris Grismer, Jeff Woolnough, Peter Wellington and Kelly Makin. In Canada, the first episode scored an average 615,000 viewers, growing to 700,000 over the hour, despite serious opposition from a televised major sports event. – Caroline Smart