Grown Up With Degrassi

I was already in my thirties when Degrassi Junior High hit the CBC and PBS (thanks to WGBH) airwaves in 1987 and Degrassi High hit the CBC and PBS airwaves two years later. I was, by that time, already a devotee of classic Hollywood cinema, a devotee of the art cinema of Ingmar Bergman, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer, and François Truffaut, and someone who found what would be the first entry in the seemingly never ending Star Wars franchise too adolescent and too uncampy campy for his taste. Degrassi Classic, as Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High have come to be called thanks to Degrassi: The Next Generation (CTV, 2001-2009, Much Music, 2010-2013, MTV Canada, 2013-2015), a reboot and reimaging of the original two series, ended with the more adult oriented CBC telefilm School's Out in 1992.

I don't recall exactly how or when I happened upon Degrassi Junior High. I do, however, recall what I found interesting about the show and what I liked about it, it felt real rather like some of the films of John Cassavetes and François Truffaut's 400 Blows. Later I learned that Degrassi Junior High was the heir of the Kids of Degrassi Street (CBC, 1979-1986). I learned that the franchise came out of Playing With Time Incorporated, a production company established by Linda Schuyler, a former teacher, and Kit Hood, a former editor, in Toronto. I learned where the realism of Degrassi with its age appropriate casting, its emphasis on school time, and its documentary like mise-en scene, a mise-en-scene that was so real that it was filmed on the upper floors of a real school, came from. I learned that it came not only out of the intentions of Schuyler, Hood, and main writer Yan Moore, but also from the Playing With Time Repertory Company, which was also established by Schuyler and Hood, and which was made up of the cast of, at its zenith, around 65 young people, who applied to become members of the company and had to do auditions before they could become members of Repco, as insiders called the Playing With Time Repertory Company. I learned that the cast of Degrassi got together during the reading of scripts and during those readings cast members made suggestions to Schuyler, Hood, Moore, and the other writers, as to how the characters in the show would act and how they would speak. I learned that the adults behind the show, who were already committed to realism, took the input of the Repco seriously, something that made the show seem real despite exaggerations for dramatic and comedic effect, to this thirtysomething who had experienced many of the things portrayed in a show during his junior and senior high school years. I learned that Degrassi's mission was, as was that of the early BBC, to entertain and critically, to educate. I thought Degrassi did both.

Now that I am even older it seems to me that Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High were among the first television shows, to realistically explore the lives of junior and senior high schoolers. In retrospect, Degrassi seems like the first in a line of more realist television shows that would lead to the American television show The Wonder Years (ABC, 1998-1993), whose focus was as much if not more on the outside of school life of three friends, Kevin, Winnie, and Paul, and on Kevin's family life, Aaron Spelling's Beverly Hills, 90210 (Fox, 1990-2000), initially, apparently, an American attempt to do Degrassi High, the American television show My So Called Life (ABC, 1994-1995), the American television show Freaks and Geeks (NBC, 1999-2000), the brilliant American television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer (WB, 1997-2001, UPN, 2001-2003), where the metaphors of the horrors and terrors of high school--not only those of the id--were grafted onto monsters, the British show Outnumbered (BBC, 2007-2014), which was filmed in a real house in Wandsworth and which allowed its three kids to improv within the boundaries set by the script, and the British television show Skins (E4, 2007-2013), the Georgie arc in the Canadian show Heartland (CBC, 2007-), aspects of the Canadian show Dark Oracle (YTV, 2004-2006), and even the American television show thirtysomething (ABC, 1987-1991), a realist look at the lives of several American thirtysomethings in Philadelphia. For this reason alone Degrassi is historically significant and deserves the attention of cultural historians, social scientists, and media scholars.

The Degrassi franchise, as I noted earlier, did not end with School's Out in 1992. In 2001 Degrassi was resurrected as Degrassi: The Next Generation, just as Star Trek had been raised from the dead with Star Trek: The Next Generation (syndicated, 1987-1994). This new iteration of Degrassi, after the two parter "Mother and Child Reunion", which introduced us to Emma, the daughter "Spike" gave birth to in Degrassi Junior High, even reused, at least in the first season, many of the same elements (for example, the school election, the school dance, alcohol abuse) from the early episodes of Degrassi Junior High.

There are other similarities between Degrassi Classic and Degrassi: TNG as well including an ensemble cast, the use of age appropriate actors, character arcs, the focus on school time, the focus on the seemingly apocalyptic trials, tribulations, and travails of the junior high school and senior high school student, a musical score that still does variations on the theme song, and a cast that reflected the multiculturalism and diversity of Canada in the wake of changes in Canadian immigration policy and the sources of immigration to Canada in 1947, 1952, 1962, 1967, and 1976. Similarities aside, there are also differences between Degrassi Classic and Degrassi: The Next Generation. Instead of filming in a real school, as did Degrassi Classic, Degrassi: The Next Generation was filmed at the studios of Epitome Pictures in Toronto, which was founded by Schuyler and Steven Sohn in 1992, which was renamed DHX Pictures Toronto in 2014 (a division of DHX Media) and which is now part of WildBrain, a Canadian entertainment conglomerate specialising in children's television programming. There was no longer a repertory company that the cast was part of. The actors in TNG were professional actors unlike the amateurs of the Playing With Time Repertory Company. The stars of TNG got their names and faces above the title while the ensemble that was Degrassi Classic got their names in the end credits. Though the actors in TNG are age appropriate, some of them looked to me more like the professional models cum actors of American teen shows with their twentysomethings playing teen somethings. TNG was on the commercial Canadian network CTV while Classic was on the Canadian public television network, CBC.

Though co-creator Linda Schuyler downplayed the differences between Degrassi Classic and Degrassi The Next Generation at a TNG panel at the 2021 ATX festival, the differences between the two are, at least to me and to others who have written critically about the differences between Degrassi Classic and TNG, significant. While viewers still, if fan comments on social media are a guide, identified with members of the TNG cast, there is a qualitative difference between identifying with cast members who are amateurs and more like the viewers than with a cast of professional actors, even if being a professional actor and celebrity in Canada is different than being a professional actor and celebrity in the United States, who are a class apart. Speaking of stars, we shouldn't forget that TNG produced a megacelebrity, rapper Aubrey Graham who now goes by the name of Drake, and middling television celebrities like Shenea Grimes, who went on to star in the reboot of the American teen show 90210 (CW, 2008-2013), Nina Dobrev, who starred in the American teen horror show Vampire Diaries (CW, 2009-2017), and Stacey Farber, who went on to star in the Canadian show 18 to Life (CBC, 2010-2011, CW, 2010), none of whom appeared on the ATX TNG 20th anniversary reunion panel. Classic, on the other hand, did not produce megastars or even middling celebrities because, to some extent, the original kids of Degrassi--"Snake", "Wheels", "Spike", Stephanie, Lucy, Michelle, Caitlin, Joey, Heather, Erica, Arthur, Yick, Liz, Voula, LD--were too real and were, as a result, too typecast as actors. Subsequent acting gigs offered many of those who remained actors after Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High were for characters which were much like those they played in Degrassi Classic.

For an interesting collection of essays on Degrassi see Michele Byers (ed.), Growing Up Degrassi: Television, Identity, and Youth Cultures, Toronto: Sumach Press, 2005)

 

Musings on the Endless Whinging and Whining of the Right-Wing and Murdoch Mysteries

Among the post-1960s ideological generations nobody whinges and whines like the right-wing. They whinge about the decline of the family. They whine about abortion. They whinge about liberals. They whine about socialists. They whinge about feminism. They whine about the make believe war against Christmas and Christians, the supposed decline in family values, cigarette restrictions, seat belt laws, gun control restrictions, and vegans, who are around 2% of the US population. They whinge about being victimised. They whine about films. They whinge about TV.  They whinge, whinge, whinge and whine, whine, whine, something right-wing radio does all the time because they know it attracts listeners, manipulates emotions, and sends listeners to the polls.

Recently, I ran across several right wingers whinging and whining in their typical declensionish way about the Canadian television show, Murdoch Mysteries at the questionably critically literate Amazon.com. In their "reviews"--a term I use advisedly here since they are less reviews than expressions of feelings--of season fourteen several posters deplored what they saw as the increasing political and ideological correctness of Murdoch Mysteries all, ironically, in an apparently unrecognised politically and ideologically correct way. Please take a moment to marvel at that. These "reviewers" don't, as they often don't, delineate exactly what they mean by agendas, pandering to bs, or preachiness. They simply assert it in empirically deficient declarative sentences raising the question of what all this right-wing gnashing of teeth is about. Are they upset that there are representations of alternative sexual lifestyles in Murdoch? Are they upset that there are Black Canadians in Murdoch Mysteries? Are they upset that there are too few serial killers in the show? They are certainly not upset, one assumes, over the respect for religion, the respect for tradition, the respect for scientific knowledge and its forensic abilities, and the respect for intellect Canadian Tory Michael Taube finds and praises in the show or the cameo of Taube's friend and then Canadian Tory prime minister Stephen Harper in the show.

Some of the reviewers of season fourteen of Murdoch Mysteries claimed that this political and ideological correctness of the show has increased recently. One claimed that it had increased after season five, when the Rogers Corporation owned Citytv axed Murdoch and the CBC, a knee jerk target of many right wing Canadians and their fellow travellers just as the BBC is the knee jerk target of the Daily Mail and Murdoch News Corp ethically and morally challenged right in the United Kingdom, picked up the show. These posters seem to forget about the sympathetic treatment of Blacks, at least by Murdoch and coroner and doctor Julia Ogden, and the critique of the cultures and ideologies of racism in the first season episode 'The Knockdown". They seem to forget about the sympathetic portrayal of gays and the critique of homophobia, including Catholic Murdoch's, in the first season episode "Till Death Do Us Part". They seem to forget about the sympathetic portrayal of women trapped in the iron cage of patriarchy in the third season episode "Victor, Victorian". They seem to forget that one of the themes of the show is how modernity impacts the faith of the Catholic Murdoch throughout the show and the real tensions and debates these often bring. Some of them even appear to have difficulty understanding the fact that there were political, ideological, intellectual, ethnic, sexual, and gender countercultures and subcultures during the Victorian and Edwardian eras and distinguishing a fictional television show from Victorian and Edwardian non-fiction. But then empirical analysis and accuracy have never been amongst the strong suits of right-wing political and ideologically correct types.

Right wing identity groups, of course, will never be nutted by this reality. They create their own reality in the political and ideological image of the demagogues that pied piper them and the elites these demagogues ultimately serve. That, unfortunately, is how so much of the world too often works these days. In contemporary right wing North American discourse they--fill in the evil other blank--are keeping the pie from our sky is the order of the emotional right wing day and they whinge about it all the time. This whining, sadly, ain't going anywhere anytime soon.

But do these politically and ideologically correct posters have a point even if it not quite the one they were trying to make in a rather unempirical way? Has Murdoch Mysteries gotten a bit long in the narrative tooth? One Amazon poster, who may or may not be right-wing, claims that the show needs new writers to presumably breathe new life in a show that has, as I write, been on for fifteen years, something that in and of itself may be a reason for any perceived decline in the show. I am not sure. I tend to binge watch Murdoch, which may not be the best way to watch the show, but I still enjoy it immensely after all these broadcast years. It remains, along with the Canadian show Heartland, also in its fifteenth season, and the Danish show Seaside Hotel, one of my favourites among the current crop of television shows I have seen. I still enjoy its stories, its character arcs, its character centred interactions, its humour, its satire, and its sometimes emotional and intellectual heft. I will likely keep on watching it when I can until it goes off the air, as it inevitably must.

Musings on the Murdoch Mysteries

Canadian television doesn't get a lot of respect from the academic and critical film and television community. The BFI and Wayne State University Press, despite their ample list of monographs in their BFI TV Classics and TV Milestones series on American and British television shows, have not published a single volume on a Canadian television show. I find this not only interesting but also unfortunate because, of the limited number of new television series I watch these days, the two shows I enjoy the most are two Canadian TV shows, Heartland and Murdoch Mysteries.

Both Heartland (CBC, 2007), the contemporary family saga of the Bartletts and their Alberta ranch, a show that has elements of the rural and pastoralist myth in it, and Murdoch Mysteries (CityTV, 2008-2011, CBC, 2-11-), a Canadian mystery series set in Victorian and Edwardian Toronto, have been very successful by any measure. Both Heartland and Murdoch Mysteries have been, for example, on air for thirteen seasons and been commissioned by the CBC for a fourteenth. Both are currently the longest running drama series on Canadian television with 214 and 211 episodes respectively. You would think this would garner at least a modicum of attention from the academic and critical community but it hasn't as of yet.

In the rest of this essay I want to focus my gaze on Murdoch Mysteries and the various levels on which Murdoch functions or "works".

The Production Level:
ITV's involvement brings with it quite a pedigree in adapted detective fiction including Inspector Morse, Lewis, Endeavour, DCI Banks, Vera... Another thing that struck me about the show is how like classic Doctor Who Murdoch is. It simultaneously entertains and educates.

The Narrative Level:
Murdoch Mysteries is centred around the various cases of Precinct Four of the Toronto Constabulary its detective, Inspector William Murdoch, its constables, particularly Constable George Crabtree, its coroners, Dr. Julia Ogden, Dr, Emily Grace, and, once again, Dr. Ogden, its Inspector, Thomas Brackenreid, and the criminals, politicians, members of the Toronto Constabulary who intersect with the main characters of the series.

The narrative level of Murdoch contains the character traits and character arcs not only of the central characters of the show but also recurring characters who reappear on the show, some criminal, some not, like Eva Pearce, Terrance Myers, James Pendrick, and a brilliant young man who thinks he is Sherlock Holmes. When these recurring characters reappear it is like seeing old friends even if these old friends have murder and mayhem on their minds.

One of the interesting things about Murdoch, given that it is a show grounded in history, is that among the characters who we viewers see as we watch the series are historical figures and incidents from the Canadian, British, European, and American pasts such as Winston Churchill, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agnes Macphail, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven, Clara Brett Martin, Florence Nightingale Graham, Mark Twain, Harry Houdini, the Wright Brothers, Wilfred Laurier, Emma Goldman, Prince Alfred, W.C. Fields, the Canadian and British women's suffrage movement, and the Great Fire of Toronto of 1904, among others.

As is typically the case with ensemble arc driven television shows, Murdoch takes viewers on a journey that intersects with the journeys of its characters. Those who become involved with the show have a lot to chose from as they intersect with the characters of the show. Will Julia and William finally get married, they might wonder. Will George find someone, they might ask themselves. Will George's Book become a success? Will Julia and the suffragettes succeed?

The Genre Level:
Murdoch is a drama, a tragedy, a satire, a parody, a comedy, a romance, a detective and mystery show, science fiction, steampunk, costume, adaptation, horror. The show has a wonderfully wry sense of humour.

The Historical Level:
As I noted Murdoch is set in Victorian and post-Victorian Toronto. This gives Murdoch a different flavour when compared with the other numerous detective shows on Canadian, British, and American television. While the Toronto of Murdoch is dominated by Anglo-Saxons and WASP culture, the city, thanks to immigration, is becoming ever larger, ever noisier, and ever more culturally, demographically, and socially diverse. There are references to the various neighbourhoods of the city, the various ethic groups of the city, the various classes of the city, and the various historical and cultural geographic landmarks of the city.

As I noted earlier, we meet, in the course of the series, various well known historical events and historical figures and various not so well known historical events and figures. For those with a historical and social scientific bent like myself, Murdoch is a kind of historical and social scientific pursuit.

The Nationalist Level:
Like the classic CTV series Due South (1994-1999), Murdoch plays with the notion and idea of Canadianess. I might add here that Inspector Murdoch is kind of a RCMP Constable Benton Fraser, one of the main characters of Due South, for the 21st century. In fact, Murdoch's half brother seems to me to be an intentional chop off the old Fraser block. One of the themes that runs throughout Murdoch, just as it, according to some, was and is a central theme of Canadian history and culture, is the difference between Canada and the behemoth to its south, the United States.

As was the case with the Canadian references in Due South, most prominently to Diefenbaker, one suspects that the references to Canadian history, Canadian culture, and Canadian historical figures, is something American viewers are unlikely to get save perhaps those that are well known south of the border. Winnifed "Freddy" Pink, in her younger form, for example, seems to be a reference to Anne of Green Gables fame, a historical reference some Americans might get.

Some might find it interesting that Murdoch, like Due South, has a firm grasp of American history, something that living next to the US and being inundated with American media, given the geographical realities of Canadian settlement, certainly promotes. Canadians, claim many, including film maker Michael Moore, seem to have a firmer grasp of American history and culture than Americans have of Canadian history and culture.

Murdoch is somewhat similar to Forgotten Silver (1995), the Peter Jackson and Costa Botes faux documentary, that played into and played with New Zealand nationalism and ethnocentrism offending some when they learned the documentary was actually fictional, in the process. As was the case with Forgotten Silver, where a Kiwi was first in flight, the developer of the moving camera shot, and the creator of colour cinema, the character of James Pendrick, a Canadian, is first in flight, the creator of the electric car, and the developer of a new and dangerous weapon. Like Forgotten Silver, Murdoch plays into and plays with notions of Canadian nationalism in what some might call a reflexive, parodic, satiric and postmodernist way.

The Parodic and Satirical Level:
One of the fascinating things about Murdoch is that though it is set among the British Canadian Protestant elite, middle class, and working class cultures, and Murdoch is a Victorian gentleman, he is also, as Brackenreid periodically notes, a "Papist", a Roman Catholic, an outsider, an other.

Murdoch pokes fun at Canadianess and Canadian nationalism in a number of ways. When Prime Minister Laurier walks into Precinct Four one of the constables does not recognise him. Is this a poke at contemporary Canadian knowledge of Canadian history?

Murdoch undercuts Canadian nationalism, for example, by referencing the breaking of a treaty between the government of Ontario and Ontario's First Peoples in 1903 when silver is discovered in First People's territory in an episode where Murdoch and Crabtree investigate a murder that takes them into First People's lands. So much for Canadian exceptionalism.

Murdoch also undercuts notions of Canadian exceptionalism by pointing up the similarities between the Canadian spy Terrance Meyers and his American cousins, Very LeCarreesque.

The Intellectual Level:
Murdoch has, at times, a moral heft to it as when Murdoch and Inspector Chief Constable Giles debate law, justice, and loyalty in a deeply tragic episode.

The Postmodern Level:
Murdoch plays with us 20th and 21st century viewers and our popular culture capital in addition to our historical capital. The female comedian in the vaudeville episode, for example, recalls Joan Rivers. Murdoch references Hitchcock, the film D.O.A, and the Steven Spielberg film Raiders of the Lost Ark, among others, and actually simulates them. Additionally, the show makes us, I suspect, connect and perhaps even laugh at Crabtree's discovery of pizza (by the bite), hamburgers, and hot dogs, and one of the characters' dismissal of beef on bread.

Murdoch, which is fairly historically accurate, also plays with history in a kind of present meets past way. Murdoch, for example, invents the lie detector and the taser, amongst a host of crime fighting technologies and categorises what we today call serial killers as sequential killers.

A lifesize replica of Hagia Sophia and the Holy Grail in Markham Ontario? A killer corset in Toronto? Valerie Solanas before Valerie Solanas? H.P. Lovecraft and Toronto's Edwardian goths?

A note on the Halloween episode Sir.Sir?Sir!!! (12:6, 2018):
What a fun and humourous episode. If the comments on IMDb about this episode are a guide, those who watched it and commented on it at the IMDb website seemed to have missed the episode's indebtedness to the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Apparently, if this is prologue past and present, many are not as aware of postmodernist intertextuality as some would like us to think. I suppose we can, given this, why many of the "reviewers" didn't seem to have grasped the fun, humour, and parodic aspects of the episode. Nor, of course, do many of the younger viewers have any sense of media history. Welcome to the brave new digital world where those who have the world literally at their fingertips show little in the way of inquisitiveness.

Envoi
Murdoch Mysteries, what a wonderfully fun television show that is also quite moving at times thanks to its Buffylike emotional depth...

The Canadians are Coming! The Canadians are Coming!

O History. Where for art thou? That was my first thought when I read “The Canadians are Coming to US TV” in The Guardian's TV and Radio Blog on 2 May 2012 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2012/may/02/canadian-us-tv-la-complex).

Contrary to the press Canadian shows have been on "mainstream" US TV (NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, CW) for some time. Due South, for example, ran on the CBS network if fitfully in the 1990s. 18 and Life was given a brief run on the CW and the viewing numbers were so bad that even that little watched network put it on hiatus. The US network big boys have shown Rookie Blue and Flashpoint. Beyond the big network boys Being Erica, Intelligence, Da Vinci's Inquest, Forever Knight, the great Slings and Arrows, Lexx, Stargate, and Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High, both of which became a cult hits in the States thanks to PBS, and others have been shown in various ways on American TV.

Aesthetically speaking I am fond of Intelligence (though I wouldn't use one of those unfortunate similarity metaphors, i.e., it is like The Wire, so many "critics" are fond of to describe it), Da Vinci, Being Erica, and Slings and Arrows. The last was touted as "the best programme ever" by some in the American press (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12144988). That said, it is worth remembering that the press, the Guardian included as this story shows, do rather like to engage in ahistorical hyperbole and such ahistorical hyperbole appears in the press again and again in cycles.

Why I Love Being Erica

The CBC programme Being Erica (2009-2011), which just finished its third season, is easily my favourite TV programme since Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly.

Erica actually shares a lot with Buffy, Degrassi Classic, and My So-Called Life. Erica's creator, writer, and executive producer, Jana Sinyor, and Aaron Martin, Erica's writer and executive producer, both have ties to Degrassi: The Next Generation, and both have talked, as the excerpt from an interview with them at TV Casualty makes clear, about the influence of Buffy on Being Erica.

Like Buffy, Being Erica uses genre, in Erica's case science fiction, to explore, in a nuanced and complex fashion, the dramas and tragedies of real life. Erica (Erin Karpluk), a Torontonian Jewish thirtysomething, as we learn in the very first episode of Being Erica ("Doctor Tom", 5 January 2009), is in time travel therapy. Much of Erica's therapy revolves around past regrets, past regrets which include Erica's regret at her behaviour during a high school dance, the demise of one of Erica's former friendships, Erica's first sexual relationship, Erica's relationships with her family, Erica's relationships with former lovers, Erica's bat mitzvah, and probably most of all, Erica's regrets surrounding the death of her brother Leo, a regret that partially culminates in the superb season one finale "Leo" (1 April 2009). Like Buffy Being Erica is an arc show, novelistic television. And like Buffy Being Erica is novelistic television that touches on the social ethics of everyday life and treats these ethical issues in a sophisticated way.

I like all of this. A lot. I love intelligent arc television. I love television shows that take social ethical issues seriously. I love adult television that makes me, by making me identify with a protagonist like Erica, think seriously of what I have done in my past and its consequencs. Being Erica has all of this and more. I love Being Erica.

Appendix:
Aaron Martin and Jana Sinyor talk about the influence of Buffy on Being Erica...
Was it difficult to come up with that mythology?
Martin: Not really. [Jana and I] both come from a love of shows like that. The reason we both know each other and bonded is because of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is a huge show with a big blueprint to it. It’s the kind of TV that we really like.
Sinyor: We like shows that have a fantasy element that are grounded in reality. That’s what this show [Being Erica] is. We both loved that Buffy was very much set in the real world, that it had this whole underground thing with vampires.



Read What Others Have Written About Being Erica:
Being Erica TV Character Transfixes Toronto's Jews
http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=186852

Being Erica Takes a Jewish Slant on the Single Life
http://www.jewishjournal.com/television/article/being_erica_tv_show_takesjewish_slant_on_single_life_20090311/

Yiddeshe Mamme on Being Erica
http://truthpraiseandhelp.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/time-traveling-in-toronto/
http://truthpraiseandhelp.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/make-someone-happy/

On Season Two of Being Erica
http://cultural-learnings.com/2009/12/09/season-finale-being-erica-the-importance-of-being-erica/

Interview with Erica Creator Jana Sinyor
http://stayinginwithvlada.com/2010/01/18/what-its-like-being-erica-with-creator-jana-sinyor/

Jana Sinyor and Aaron Martin Talk Being Erica
http://communities.dose.ca/dose/blogs/tvcasualty/archive/2009/09/21/being-erica-q-amp-a-with-executive-producers-jana-sinyor-and-aaron-martin.aspx

Viewing Being Erica:
If you are in the US you can watch the first two seasons of Being Erica on hulu thanks to SoapNet, the network Erica is on in the States
http://www.hulu.com/being-erica

You can also check out Erica's webblogs and webbisodes at the CBC Being Erica site (http://www.cbc.ca/beingerica/) and at hulu.