Good-bye, "ER"!

I became a TV addict over summer 1994 – partly with my convalescence from a NYC car accident knee injury – and the two shows I was most enthusiastic about in fall 1994, when I was living in Albany, was “NYPD Blue,” set in NYC, and the brand-new show “ER,” set in Chicago. Since other friends – including those back in NYC – were watching also, watching these shows became a connection to NYC (also by watching “Blue,” “Law and Order,” “Seinfeld,” and other shows set in NYC). Also, living by myself (in Albany, Columbus, and Westerville and – eventually - Sarasota, St. Paul, and Macomb), let’s be frank, these were the people I spent many nights at home alone with – when I wasn’t out doing research interviews, typing up interview notes at Kinko’s, reading old newspapers on microfilm in libraries, or eating out.

Over the years, as the characters in “ER” changed, I quit watching 10 p.m. shows because I was getting up at 5:30 a.m. or so to walk the dog, as it became order to follow story arc shows like “ER” when I missed so many episodes, and then – a year or so – when I kicked my TV addiction altogether. And so I haven’t watched the show for so long. (Even before I lived Illinois, I always wanted to do some “ER” tourism, by visiting Chicago’s Cook County Memorial Hospital, which the show’s “County General” is based on. But by the time I got out there – during the year I lived in Illinois – the old building had closed and a very modern hospital building had replaced it. Still, I drove by the old building and took pictures and walked into the new building.)

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Yet the show was such a big part of my life for nearly 10 years – and at least one of the original actors – George Clooney – is still a favorite of ours, from “O Brother Where Art Thou” to “Michael Clayton,” and I still like many old and new characters, including Noah Wylie, the only character to span just all but one or two of the show’s 15 years. Although I never saw the two-hour pilot, he was a brand-new medical student in the show’s first season, and his promotion to one of the show’s main characters really started at the start of Season 2, when my Albany area baby-sitting charge, Chantal, and I watched that season’s bloody opening episode (before I had to get her quickly to bed as her Mom returned home). (Chantal was a Vincent precursor/forerunner.) – that I had to watch the retrospective/finale this past Thursday night.

The retrospective included scenes from many episodes I’ve seen, plus reminiscences from various actors and producers (show creator Michael Crichton died last year). The plot of the x nfinal episode includes a reunion of sorts to mark the opening of Dr. Carter’s new preventive medicine center, a tough time for a new med student a la doctor (who obviously won’t get to stay on the show since it’s ended), a plot that tracked a bit of that classic Season 2 episode “Love’s Labor Lost,” and a connection to beloved original “ER” character Dr. Greene, who died in Season 18 or so, when his daughter (played by the same actress all grown up) comes back as a prospective med student. Good run, “ER”!

-- Perry