Television characters don't have to be married for the audience to think they're sort of married.
Don Draper and Peggy Olson on Mad Men.
Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock.
Jack Bauer and Chloe O'Brian on 24.
Each of those "couples" is joined at the hip, not romantically, but professionally, spiritually, comically. In their respective TV worlds, you can't really imagine one without the other.
We would add the two main characters in Being Erica - namely, Erica Strange (played by Erin Karpluk) and Dr. Tom (played by Michael Riley) - to that list.
Notably, when Being Erica returns for its third season on Tuesday, Sept. 21 on CBC, just how "married" Erica and Dr. Tom are - therapeutically speaking - is a major issue.
"I agree, that relationship is the key to the show," Karpluk said. "It would not be Being Erica without Dr. Tom.
"In the season premiere, that is addressed, their relationship. What is that? And it evolves.
"Dr. Tom knows Erica better than anyone else, but there's a lot of trust and vulnerability and fear that comes along with that. We address a lot of that in the third season. It's very interesting."
For the uninitiated, Erica is a charming but lost young woman living in Toronto who crosses paths with Dr. Tom, a mysterious therapist. Dr. Tom has the ability to send Erica back in time, where she can confront regrets.
As the third season begins, Erica embarks upon phase two of her therapy. But with that structural shift, assumptions that Erica and Dr. Tom have made about each other get knocked askew.
"Like any marriage, it naturally goes through stages," Riley said. "Husband-wife, father-daughter, teacher-student. There's lots in that cauldron, and more to come."
The performances of Karpluk and Riley always have been outstanding in Being Erica. Story-wise, we have wondered through the years why so many of the other characters are so hair-trigger mean to Erica, who almost always is well-intentioned, albeit awkwardly so.
Case in point, without giving away too much, there's a scene in the third-season premiere where Erica and another character have an argument in a hospital.
Erica is led to believe she has screwed up royally and needs to apologize, whereas all we could think was, "Why the heck would Erica have to apologize? That other character should be apologizing to her for being such a class-A jackass!"
Anyway, even though the CBC was rather slow in renewing Being Erica this time around, we were glad to hear it was coming back. Being Erica is a unique TV series at a time when it's almost impossible to say that about anything.
"Not that there was writing on the wall, but the success of the show in other markets (internationally), to me, boded well," Riley said of the renewal delay.
Being Erica airs on ABC-owned SOAPnet in the United States, and Karpluk got quite a shock when she visited New York earlier this year.
"There was a billboard in Times Square that was offensively large," she said with a laugh.
"I was saying, 'Oh my God, it's the biggest one on the block.' It was pretty surreal."
TUESDAY, SEPT. 22
SEASON PREMIERES
Being Erica (CBC)
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The Biggest Loser (NBC, Citytv)
This Hour Has 22 Minutes (CBC)
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