Robson Arms

- Season 1

(2005)

Single mom and nurse Janice Keneally and her pre-teen son Henry Armstrong move into Robson Arms. The fact that their new apartment, like all the units in the building, requires much maintenance - in Janice's words, it's a shit-hole - is the least of her worries as she needs to adjust to her new single mom status after the turbulent break-up with Henry's father Gord. Janice's stress is evident to all her new neighbours. Yuri Kukoc, the building super, tells Henry all she really needs to relieve her stress is sex. With new friend Ruby Tan in hand, Henry goes on a search...

Fourteen month newlyweds Bobbi and Bobby Briggs are celebrating being back together after Bobby was away on a business trip to Duluth with his company, Trinity - a Christian religion materials supplier - and Bobbi, an aspiring aerobi-dance instructor, was back visiting her family in Regina. After their passionate night together, Bobbi notices a condom wrapper stashed underneath her nightstand. Knowing that Bobby didn't use the condom with her, Bobbi automatically assumes he used it with another woman and looks for other signs of who that other woman might be. Bobbi ...

Bao's mother, recently arrived from Hong Kong, moves in with the Tans. "Grandma" solely speaks Cantonese but is trying to learn English. Everyone in the household needs to make adjustments to get used to Grandma, but Ricky seems to have the hardest time. Grandma, despite her glaucoma, spends much of her time as the new pair of eyes at the store, and cannot help but comment directly, albeit in Cantonese, about all the store's customers, including Elaine Wainwright, who she accuses of being a shoplifter. There indeed has been a string of thefts at the store, so Yuri ...

All around geek, Fred Fochs, has been cyber-corresponding for three months with a woman named Kelly, who lives in Newfoundland. For both, it is a long distance girlfriend/boyfriend relationship. Luckily for both, they still consider it so after their first encounter via webcam. Kelly has decided to come to Vancouver to go to school and wants to stay with Fred, at least initially until she can find her own place. Fred is initially excited about this, until he realizes that some of his quirks may be off-putting to her in person. Chief amongst these are his brain, which ...

Geoff McAlister and Stanley Wasserman are in a gay May-September relationship. They are both a reflection of their respective generation: Geoff is an active massage therapist who keeps care of himself physically, whereas Stanley enjoys relaxing at home indulging in the finer things in life, especially when it comes to food and drink. Despite the fact that Geoff defers more often than not to Stanley's wishes, Geoff loves Stanley and visa versa. They see themselves as a gay version of their neighbours, Elaine and Carlisle Wainwright, and hope to be as happy as the ...

Hal says to his roommate Nick, "Your whole life is constipated", which is true in both a literal and figurative sense, the latter especially in relation to his love life. Not quite what you would call a ladies' man, Nick and his life start to loosen up when he meets Elaine, a married older woman in the building. Although their connection happens on many levels, they have the love of classic Canadian rock as a strong meeting point, of course including the Stampeder's song "Sweet City Woman". This liaison with Nick makes Elaine reexamine her life with older and stuffier...

Sault, a recent transplant to Vancouver from Toronto, is feeling a little alienated in her new surroundings, both within the city and within the building. Stanley, her next door neighbor, complained to the super that her cigarette smoke is traveling unwanted through the vents. Despite that, Stanley's partner, Geoff, invites Sault over for dinner as a gesture of kindness. Sault's abrasive personality grates on Stanley, but Geoff continues to maintain a friendship with her. This is strengthened when Geoff mistakenly assumes that Sault, like him, is a cancer victim, ...

Tom becomes the support for two people. First, Carlisle finally admits that Elaine has left him. Carlisle uses Tom both as his divorce lawyer (despite the fact that Tom does not specialize in divorce nor does he really agree to act as Carlisle's lawyer) and surrogate "friend". Tom is further burdened when Carlisle is unexpectedly hospitalized and thus Tom is forced to look after Elaine's beloved but temperamental dog, Lulu, who Carlisle refuses to place in a kennel. And second, Janice and Tom have been casually dating, and outwardly everything seems to be going all ...

Bao and Toni are approaching their twentieth wedding anniversary. Although they do love each other, they are falling into a rut. Toni compares their love life not to an exciting Ferrari or even stable and reliable Volvo, but rather a Pacer, "fun in the past, but outdated". On the other side of the coin, Bao thinks his professional life will soon take an upward swing when he expects he will be offered the principal tuba seat with the symphony orchestra. But the symphony's job offer of development officer isn't quite what he expected or wanted. But he takes the job, ...

Young and naive Alicia Plecas is behind in her rent. She is unemployed and unskilled. Although she is going to hairdressing school, hairdressing is a skill that she lacks. Yuri hopes to trade sexual favours for rent, but Alicia refuses. For protection, she finds Hal, who is also sexually interested in Alicia, and hopes to get her into bed eventually. Hal manages to get her a cleaning job for Carlisle, despite the fact that she doesn't have the necessary skills to do that either. She ends up being an awful, clumsy cleaner, but she and Carlisle end up bonding over ...

Hal and Nick are pining over their lost conquests, Hal with Alicia, and Nick with Elaine. Hal slowly comes to the realization that Alicia may have exposed his true shallowness with women. To test his theory, he decides to call up old girlfriends to see what they think of him. On the other side of the apartment, Sault enters Nick's life. Sault is trying to rekindle her friendship with Geoff, and by unfortunate association Stanley. She uses her new 'buddy' as a pawn in her plan. She decides to hold small dinner party with Geoff, Stanley and Nick, the latter with whom ...

Pauline and Bea Dubois, the elderly sister owners of the building, are disagreeing on how the building should be run. Pauline prefers to make do with Yuri's talents to fix whatever problem, whereas Bea thinks that many things are falling apart and should just be replaced as goodwill toward the tenants. Because of their differences and long term competition with each other, they needle each other in small ways just to get under each other's skin. The elder Pauline is the more forceful one, whereas Bea will do things on the sly. One thing that Bea has been doing on the ...

Following the suicides of the Dubois sisters, the main question on everyone's mind is who will be the new owner and what will he/she do with the building? Yuri and the Tans are the most concerned as their livelihoods are attached to the building. The who ends up being Stu Dubois, Pauline and Bea's second cousin. The what?: he intends on fixing up and selling the building. He does retain Yuri's services but Yuri is still worried that the new owner will not, and as such decides to fix up all the tenant's problems to get good references from them. The only tenant who ...