Michael: Every Day

Really well done. A show full of reality without the unnecessary entertainment gimmicks. In Michael one gets to see the suffering and how he tries to overcome his fears with the help of his doctor. The doctor-patient relationship is wonderful and so real. I found the cast brought on that reality. From Michael, to Dr. Storper and Claire and all the way to Mr. Renn acting with so much ease on his scooter-that couldn't have been easy! This cast must have been chosen with everything in mind. The perfect chemistry between Michael and Clair, the trick played by Dr. Storper were the highlights. Direction by Don Mckellar, our Canadian hero, is second to none. Honestly, he has done an amazing job to bring the cast together. An excellent, excellent production which I hope will continue like the US soaps. This is what we need to watch not the reality dance shows!

This is a great situation and it's cleverly written! Matt Watts stumbles around as the key patient apparently needing therapy yet actually living quite a good life. Matt has his struggles, but he somehow pulls off the important things and finds success all around him. The therapist, however, is comically inept at everyday life! Fortunately, he can bounce things off his supervisor, Ed Asner (in shorts). The other characters are either competent in their personal lives or in their professional lives, but few master both. ~~~ The writing for this series is tight and not overly predictable. The acting is understated and credible. I absolutely RAVE about this series! I introduced my neighbours to this series and now we arrange to get together each week so we can watch it together (on demand).

I've read at least one review that has said this show makes fun of mental illness, anxiety, phobias, etc. I disagree wholeheartedly. With the scenes that immerse you into the panicked situation that Michael is in, like the elevator for instance, you can really get a sense of what this is like for people who live with it everyday. It does make jokes, but they need light-hearted breaks from the tension. You can always find humour, even in some darker things, and I respect the show for its take.

My favourite aspect of the show is the narration, which is insightful and painfully true, and is never stated eloquently. Dr. Storper speaks it as a train of thought, with all pauses, corrections, and improper wording included. As a writer who often tries to sit and make sense of my thoughts, I can appreciate its realism. I also love the endings of each episode, specifically their subtlety.

I love finding Canadian shows, and this one certainly is a hidden gem! I definitely recommend!

What a great show! I stumbled into it, had no expectations one way or another, and was sucked in. The two main characters, the shrink and the patient, are likable, very human, and very relatable. The humor is Canadian - wry, a bit self-deprecating, on point. The two leads, the shrink and the patient have messy lives --- because life IS messy. There's a U. S. show,"The Patient" - in which the patient is a sociopath. Gets very strange. This t.v. Show is sociopath-free. It's fun watching characters dip into each other lives. I trying to avoid revealing too much. "Workin' Moms" is another Canadian workplace comedy which is also highly successful (in terms of convincing me love it).

Charming, profound, bingeworthy Canadian series written and performed by a couple of veteran sketch-com guys, Bob Martin (as Dr. Storper) and Matt Watts (who gets a credit for "neuroses") as Michael. Sorry to say that it stiffed on the CBC 10+ years ago, a promised third season never materialized, and it isn't getting a whole lot of love on this forum right now, tbh. My clever wife discovered it on Netflix and we gobbled it up just like that.

Dr. Storper's a cognitive behavioral therapist, which means he nudges his "multiphobic" patient into real-life situations that trigger his anxiety, a technique that's not all that different from improv, it seems to me. When that vein's played out, subplots involving Dr. Storper's efforts to cash in on Michael's shaky recovery with a self-help book, plus some workplace stuff where Michael gets sabotaged by a rivalrous normie, are both quite entertaining. Scripts are consistently well worked out; jokes are delivered with deadpan Canadian subtlety, and the supporting cast (including a recurring role for Ed Asner and cameos by Sandra Oh and Samantha Bee) is first-rate. Cougarish Jennifer Irwin ("Eastbound and Down") returns to her Canadian roots as Storper's very hands-on editor; horror-show stalwart Tommie-Amber Pirie gets to stretch as the doctor's ditsy receptionist and Michael's on-and-off GF, on the well known theory that a 30-something protagonist who's a 5 at best deserves at least an 8 as his love interest.