Dear Being Erica,

I think we have a bit of a problem. See, you pulled a bait-and-switch on me.

After your entertaining-but-just-OK first season, I was ready to give the Season 2 premiere a quick viewing and then ignore subsequent episodes until the season was over, at which point I'd end up watching all of them at once on a day when I had nothing to do. Maybe you knew this; in hindsight, you must have known this, because you knew exactly how to suck me back in. Your Season 2 premiere was great, putting Erica into a new kind of flashback, showing her what Dr. Tom was like before he became a magical therapist while still introducing a lot of new questions. I was excited about this new direction -- Erica would now enter into other people's past and help them! And we have the added mystery of how Dr. Tom went from the depressed, suicidal man of the past to the confident, brilliant man he is now. And there was Kai, the barista at Goblin's, who is also in mystery therapy. A great start.

But... you haven't gone back to that. You've gone back, yes, but to the same, cookie-cutter episode format of last year. Even though Erica pretty much got her life together last season, she's still going back to fix her past regrets - even though, it seems to me, she's well to the point that she could figure out most of her problems on her own without therapy, magical or not. The second episode had her going back to change how she responded to getting dumped at camp; Episode 3 was changing a decision she made in university. I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on those episodes, figuring that you'd find your footing and get back to the exciting and new direction you seemed to promise in the premiere. But tonight's episode is more of the same -- this time, Erica goes back to one of her summers in university and decides to go to Taipei with her friend Jenny.

What happened? Why did you back away when things were just getting good? After a full season of watching Erica fix her regrets, I'm not sure I want to see it anymore. And you seemed to understand that -- at least, I thought you understood it. But we haven't found out anything more about Dr. Tom. I can almost understand this -- after all, you don't want to reveal the secrets behind your magical premise too soon, because then you probably don't have anywhere to go with your show. But that's what Kai was for, right? To provide another mystery? You're clearly trying to stretch out Kai's storyline as much as possible, but the way you're doing it reeks of laziness. Erica discovers another person is in this magical therapy, but... Kai doesn't want to talk about it. Because if he did, then you'd have to come up with some new stuff for him later, so just insert a "uh, I'm kind of uncomfortable talking about this" line and ta da! Problem solved, whether it makes sense or not. Because it doesn't make sense; any rational person would want to talk about it at least a bit, but Kai's reluctance just seems like a clumsy plot device to keep the story going all season. Obviously this is going to pay off later on, but that means that the current episodes just aren't working.

So with no Dr. Tom and no progress on Kai, we're stuck with Erica fixing her past mistakes. And what frustrates me is that Erica continues to be very judgmental of her friends -- sure, she learned her lesson with Judith last week, but tonight, she gets very judgmental of Jenny and her hookups, under the guise of helping her friend. And I realize you think being judgmental is another term for taking a position, but the positions Erica takes frequently make it hard for the viewer to like her, because she holds her friends and family to near-impossible standards. It's a fine line, I understand, but Erica  acts as though Jenny is unhappy and that's why she dates so many people for short periods of time -- and, because this is TV, of course Jenny does this because she's unhappy. She couldn't possibly just prefer that kind of life, because on TV, everyone wants serious, steady relationships and anyone who wants otherwise is just scared. Thank goodness Erica is there to inform Jenny just how miserable she is and how she should change. That's not really what I had in mind when I thought Erica would be helping people.

So, Being Erica, I'm going to keep watching, and I have a feeling you'll pick up in a few weeks. But if you were just going to spin your wheels after the Season 2 premiere, I wish you'd never made such a good premiere to begin with. I was hoping this was a step forward for us, but I guess you just weren't ready for that.

Love (for now),

Kat