Hiccups

Delightful and funny. Canadian television shines again. Nancy Robertson plays Millie Upton, a successful children's book author. She sees the world as a child. She overacts to difficult situations with what her editor calls hiccups, these hiccups inspire her books. To deal with her hiccups she hires a life coach, Stan (Brent Butt), who has no formal training has his hands full trying to defuse her hiccups and help her understand them and why she reacts the way she does. Her overreactions are how most of wish we could say or do. Nancy Robertson is as wonderful as she was in Corner Gas. Kudos to the writers on creativity and freshness and not relying on vulgar offensive language, violence and nudity to tell a story.

I waited along time for Hiccups to arrive and now that it's here, I'm loving every minute of it! Brent Butt is a genius and has transplanted the magic of Corner Gas to urban Vancouver in Hiccups. The writing is superb and the characters are wonderful. The premise of the series is that Millie Upton (Nancy Robertson)a children's writer with anger management issues finds therapy in Stan Dirko (Brent Butt), a life coach who with Millie as his only client fumbles his way to setting her on the right path. Surrounding these two are Joyce Haddison (Laura Soltis), Millie's straight-laced editor and chief, Taylor Rhymes(David Ingram), Millie's slime ball agent who seems more interested in picking up women than Millie's career, Crystal Braywood (Emily Perkins) the ditsy, know-it-all receptionist and Anna Dirko (Paula Rivera), Stan's loving and devoted, way to hot for him wife. Together, they provide the perfect ensemble that sets this series apart from so many of the other recent sitcoms. Hiccups gets two thumbs up!

A perfect vehicle for Robertson. You never know what she will do next. And what she does is funny. Some characters are lame like the receptionist. Brett Butt plays the straight man who tries to tame Robertson.

I just found this show and I am so glad I did. I'm a fan of Corner Gas so I thought I would give Hiccups a try. I wasn't hooked right away. Robertson's character Millie was pretty outrageous, which at first struck me as too much and out of place...but then by the second episode I found her character endearing and hilariously oddball. Robertson and Brent Butt are great together in the show. All the other characters start to fill out as the show progresses and bring more subtle, but added flavor to it. Robertson is amazing in this and her outrageousness really becomes a natural, dynamic aspect of the series. Her facial expressions, body language, and line delivery are comic gold!

Yes, I was a Corner Gas fan, too and yes I was not ready for Hiccups. I needed time to heal and blah, blah, blah.

But, come on, this is a really good show. The over-the-top main character, Millie Upton, is a joy to watch and Nancy Robertson delivers in every episode. Since the genre of man-child movies and sitcoms (commercials, etc.) has forever been (obviously) a No Girls Allowed Club, it's great to see a woman take on a "chronic child" character and nail it.

The supporting characters that orbit around Millie's planet are well-developed and likable. Yes, the stories are sometimes far-fetched and unbelievable but so were the story lines on Curb Your Enthusiasm (yet another man-child show) and it didn't stop that show from being a huge hit.

The writing and comedy style still has notes of the wry, understated nature that was common on Corner Gas. But even though this is not Corner Gas, it's still a good watch.

I'm hoping for a Season 3!