Gallery Links:
- 2010 Appearances – CBC Television 2010 Fall Preview

The folks on Lost will be time-jumping no more in less than two weeks, but PopWatch’s other favorite time-traveling series will be back. Canadian broadcaster CBC and SoapNet simultaneously announced today that Being Erica has been renewed for a third season! The series will return with 13 episodes this fall on CBC before premiering in early 2011 on SoapNet.

Last season’s finale found Erica struggling with her feelings for fellow time-travel therapy patient Kai and the gnawing feeling that boyfriend Ethan was holding her back. In any other series, Ethan or Kai would have been Erica’s soulmate, but the show boldly had Erica end up single again after breaking things off with Ethan. Meanwhile, Kai returned to the future where he was from, leaving present Kai with no memory of Erica. Judging from the CBC’s press release, it seems the guys are not only out of Erica’s life, but also out of the show:
“Season two left Erica with no boyfriend, no job and a personal life in shambles. In season three, we find a newly single, more confident Erica on the path to forging a new identity for herself as she becomes the person she’s always wanted to be. Popular returning characters include Dr. Tom (Michael Riley), Erica’s ex-boss and new business partner Julianne (Reagan Pasternak), mother Barbara (Kathleen Laskey), father Gary (John Boylan) and sister Samantha (Joanne Douglas).”

Both Ethan (Tyron Leitso) and, less surprisingly, Kai (Sebastian Pigott) are missing from that list of returning characters. While it certainly makes sense for both guys to exit the series story-wise, I do wonder if Ethan’s departure is a little hasty. Before he was Erica’s boyfriend, he was her best friend for over ten years. It would be interesting to see the show explore the question of whether you can be friends with your ex and what happens after the breakup when your ex was your friend first.

In non-romantic entanglements news, I can’t wait to see more of Julianne and her growing friendship with Erica, but I hope we haven’t seen the last of River Rock Publishing’s cast of characters, especially Brent. They’d make great rivals for Erica and Julianne’s new start-up publishing company.
PopWatchers, are you disappointed Ethan and Kai won’t be back? Are you looking forward to a newly single Erica venturing out on her own? And how happy are you that the show will be back?

Gallery Links:
- Supernatural – 1×21 “Salvation” Captures

Can we talk about that crazy “Being Erica” finale?

WTF?

Kai is gone. Ethan and Erica broke up. And the last we saw of our leading lady, she was in that hallway of mysterious doors, choosing one.

So, what’s next? Well, the show hasn’t been picked up for a third season just yet, but we went to series star Erin Karpluk to get her take on the finale and where it could lead…

Okay, what’s behind the door?
Erin Karpluk: I’m dying to know what’s behind the door! I’m like, [creator] Jana [Sinyor] what’s behind the door?”

She’s keeping you in the dark, too?
EK: Oh yeah. Yeah. I actually prefer it that way. Sometimes she gives me a heads up — and I know that they do have plans [for what's behind the door], if we’re going to go back — but I like the surprise. I like to know right before we go into it, which keeps it fresh for me.

And that way you’re in the same situation as Erica. She has no clue what’s going on either.
EK: Exactly, exactly. Her life is so different. Everything’s changed, and that’s what I like about the show. When you see her in the season finale, so many things are leaving her life, which happens in life. You can have a great job and a great relationship, and it can go. I like that we left it a bit optimistic. Even though she was sad, I can’t remember exactly what she said but she said, you know what, it feels okay. Change is good. She’s making the steps towards progress and changing her life. But you never know where it’s going to go from there. She could very well fall on her face!

Did you actually watch the season finale? The finished product?
EK: I did, I watched it with some friends. It’s funny, because my one friend, usually about fifteen minutes into the episode, she figures it out, she’s very clever. So I [thought], hmm, I wonder if [she'll] get this or not, because I tried to make it so it was surprising to the audience. And she had no idea [what was coming] in the season finale. She was like, that’s incredible! And the reaction was really, really good for the season finale. That was really hard for us to top [last year's] finale, because that dealt of course with Erica’s largest regret — the loss of her brother. And it was a very emotional episode, but I really loved what the writers did with the season two [finale] because it was equally emotional, but in a different way. It kind of leaves her where she was left off in the pilot episode, when she was dumped by her loud-mouth boyfriend and was fired from her job. But at least now, she’s had this experience with Dr. Tom and she’s learned to stand up for herself and take those brave steps forward in order to make positive changes and address those demons in her closet that she’s been trying to hide.

She did lose a lot in the finale, including Kai, who was very much her kindred spirit in Season 2. If the show returns, is there a chance we could see him again? Or maybe another time traveler will show up?
EK: I can’t say for sure, because I don’t want them to tell me, but I would love for them to [delve further] into the time travel arena and see what exactly that’s about. And that’s the interesting thing about the show, the characters come and go because they’re at different points in Erica’s life, [depending on whether] she’s going backwards in time or forward. I would like Kai and Ethan to kind of come back and forth [in her life], like with her brother. Even though we had the big season finale with her brother [last year], she goes back again in Season 2 and has another experience with him. And I don’t think in life you can ever just resolve one area and be like, okay, check, that’s done. We constantly go back and forth. I personally would like to see [Kai and Ethan] again, because they were a huge part of Erica’s life. But then I’m also open to meeting [someone else]. As far as love interests go, I think that maybe she should find someone who’s a better match. I don’t know that Kai and Ethan were right for her.

Ethan and Erica could reconnect at some point though, even as friends.
EK: I think that– Oh goodness, I don’t want the Team Ethan people to get mad at me, but I do think that it would be taking a back step if she tried to get back together with him after it being so clearly something that they both don’t want. I would certainly on a personal level, though, love to work with Tyron [Leitso (Ethan)] again because we have so much fun together and I think it would be good to see him back in Season 3 at certain points.

Is there anything you’d like to see happen for Erica if the show gets picked up for a third season?
EK: I’d like to see her visit more of the spiritual side of her life. That was one of the areas we didn’t address too much this year. And I love everything between Judith and Erica because that’s really fun. I want whatever was going on with Jenny resolved, because they had a bad break, if you will, when Erica called Jenny out on all that stuff and they’ve been friends since high school, so I’d like to see more stuff with Erica and Jenny. I’d like to see how Erica and Julianne’s relationship evolves. Going from the newbie and the executive boss to being almost partners, I’d like to see that. And I’d like to see what happens with [Erica's] mom and her new boyfriend. And certainly with Sam, since they’re both in the single world now. I’d be curious to see what sort of interesting things they’d get up to.

There are so many channels on television today that you may not have noticed a wonderful little hour drama on SOAPNet called ‘Being Erica.’ If you like ‘Drop Dead Diva.’ If you go for the characters on ‘Glee.’ If you care about stories for women but don’t go for the Lifetime TV movies. If you can appreciate the differences between American TV and Canadian TV, ‘Being Erica’ is for you.

Starring Erin Karpluk as Erica Strange, a 32-year-old literary editor and wannabe writer, she’s a mass of complications in the tradition of all romantic comedy heroines. But ‘Being Erica’ has a fun, mystical twist to the standard situations we’ve seen on other shows before.

Erica has Dr. Tom. He’s her therapist, but his care includes time travel. He sends Erica to the times in her life when she needs to review what happened, relive her choices, and/or fix herself or what happened.

‘Being Erica’ is the kind of show that sneaks up on you. It gets under your skin and you realize the stories are lingering in your mind. What would you do if you had a day in which you could do anything — ANYTHING — and it didn’t count. Whatever happened would simply be erased. Sounds great, right? But as Dr. Tom pointed out to Erica when it was over, it didn’t really happen … but she experienced it and she retains the memory. Ahh, there’s the rub.

Part of the fun of ‘Being Erica’ is that it feels familiar and foreign at the same time. It’s a Canadian TV show, so it looks like America, but it’s not. None of the actors are recognizable from ‘CSI’ or ‘Desperate Housewives’ or ‘How I Met Your Mother’ (although I’d like to see Cobie Smulders pop in!). The locations aren’t New York or L.A. It’s Toronto, and that’s unique.

So, here’s a thought. If you can, DVR ‘Being Erica’ and give it a try. SOAPNet shows the episodes more than once, double shots on the weekend. New episodes air Wednesday at 10 PM ET. You’ll discover, like me, you should be watching this show.

Gallery Links:
- “Life Unexpected” – 1×04 – “Bong Intercepted” screencaptures

“I thought, ‘How many regrets can this character have?’ ” Karpluk said and then laughed in a recent telephone interview. So Karpluk was delighted when she learned that this season Erica will be doing more than fixing herself.

“She begins to help other people,” she said. “New characters are introduced, but it’s the same show. She still continues to grow and learn as a person. What I love about the second season is Erica is more worldly and more accountable and more experienced in the way of time traveling. She’s using everything from season one and applying it to season two.”

What else can viewers expect?

“I’m just going to be super-vague and say that all of the questions that the audience had from the first season will be answered in the first episode. But then I think there are a million more questions that are posed,” she said.

The second season premiere is more serious in tone, but Karpluk said there will be plenty of lighter moments.

“It’s a really exciting season. Erica impersonates Celine Dion. She is chased by a bear. She steals a Mercedes-Benz and parties with one of the biggest rock bands of all time.”

Playing a character full of regrets has given the Alberta native a new perspective on life.

“The biggest things that I’ve learned is just to let go of things,” she said. “It’s kind of paralleled with what Erica is learning: Life is short and sometimes you can’t hold on to things so dearly. I’ve learned to roll with the punches and float downstream instead of swimming up it, and it’s really helped me a lot.”

Does she wish she could “do-over” moments from her past?

“I used to say no in interviews because I think that it’s important to make mistakes, and I have such a wonderful family and friends and I love my job, so I wouldn’t want to change anything,” she said. “But at the same time, of course, there are things that I would go back and redo. But they’re the kind of things you wouldn’t tell anyone.”

The 31-year-old soon can be seen as the radio station manager on the new CW show “Life Unexpected”. She’s currently in Vancouver shooting the series.

“Compared to ‘Being Erica,’ I’m a very small part of it, which is welcomed,” she said. “There’s lots of different shenanigans that happen on the show, and I’m having a lot of fun with it.”

Gallery Links:
- Events in 2006 – Screening of “Almost Heaven” at the Vancouver International Film Festival
- Events in 2006 – Vancouver International Film Festival Opening Gala
- Events in 2006 – Gemini Awards Host City Reception in Vancouver