Being Erica – Season 1

Being Erica is a show about a woman who is disappointed with where her life has ended up and as a result ends up seeing this therapist who sends her back in time to reconcile herself with regrets she has about her past. I thought the concept for the show was pretty interesting and I thought that the events of the past she went back to reconcile were relatively universal landmarks that are relatable to the audience. She gets sent back to situations like her bat mitzfah, her first sexual experience, the university group that could have landed her her dream job, event that went both well and not so well with friends and family, and in one episode she was even sent back to before her birth to better understand her parents.

One of the things I liked about this series was that at no point in any of the times Erica goes back in time is she able to alter the chain of events that have happened. She has a list of regrets that the therapist, Tom, sends her back to and she may change her perspective or may do something different from what she did in the past, but the resulting action that happened originally will still happen. The only difference is that she understands the situation for what it is and comes to realize that she is not to blame, or if she is, to own up to her faults and change her perspective or current actions to make things right. So really, even though this sounds sort of like a science fiction with all the time travel, it is more of Erica's rumination of her life and the actions she takes to own her life and make it what she wants it to be.

I thought that the characters were interesting and sufficient attention was paid to each of the minor characters. everyone in the show is given a story (minus Erica's boss, who is discussed more in the second season) and everyone is given a little bit of depth. We learn about Erica more and more with each episode as we see her struggle with her past, so needless to say that Erica grows as a character and who we see at the beginning of the series is somewhat altered from the person who we see at the end. An interesting show to say the least.