Feeling overwhelmed by all the new television content out there? Here’s something to add to your binge list of older shows, whether you’re revisiting them — or discovering them if you missed them the first time around. Beware of spoilers.
Everyone has a TV home. The place you go when you’re feeling sad or lonely or yearning to see old friends.
I have a few of them: Carrie’s apartment from “Sex and the City,” the island on “Lost,” the prison in “Oz,” the titular town of “Deadwood.” But the place I feel most at home is the emergency room of Cook County General Hospital. I have spent hundreds of hours there, making it feel more real and precious to me than many actual places I have visited.
Thirty years out from its debut, it’s easy to write off “ER” as just a big ’90s hit, or just a medical drama, but revisiting it periodically just cements my certainty that it is not just the best doctor show ever made, but one of the best TV shows of all time.
While some medical advancements have been made, sure, and social justice improved somewhat since the show debuted in 1994, “ER” remains impressively timeless. There is a lived-in feel to the show that is there from the very first frames of the pilot.
The set is messy, the environment is chaos and you’re dropped right into the action with zero explanation of what an attending or a resident is, or what any of the tests mean. “ER” is a smart show that expects you to catch on quick, just as you would in a real emergency room, and roll with whatever comes.
Thankfully, the rhythms of the “ER” will soon feel familiar to you, whether it’s where Curtain 1 is, or what tests the doctors typically order for a gunshot wound, or the constant melee of the admit desk. The sound design enriches the milieu, a cacophony of crying babies, ringing phones, yelling paramedics, medical machines beeping and squealing.
The casting adds to this verisimilitude: “ER” is one of the best cast shows in history, featuring a legendary lineup for its first season. Like the best TV stars, they’re objectively good-looking, yes, but in a your-nice-math-teacher or that-guy-who-lives-down-the-block way.
Even George Clooney, at the height of his young hot star power, playing sassy pediatrician Doug Ross, comes across as a real guy versus the inevitable Hollywood supernova he was destined to be. “ER” had a soothing consistency in its cast, with many staying for years, while others drifted in and out occasionally, adding to the real-life workplace vibes.
It also had two of the most pure-hearted leads ever to grace a prime-time drama: Dr. Mark Greene and Dr. John Carter. Anthony Edwards and Noah Wyle’s characters weren’t just a pair of saintly do-gooders. Both went through their crucibles, whether it was PTSD or drug addiction or serious illness, and each man portrayed their characters’ flaws with skill and deep humanity. Most importantly of all, they believed in caring — truly caring — for their patients, and witnessing their frequent acts of simple human goodness makes you believe in it, too.
Regardless of how much you love Edwards or Wyle, one of the great joys of “ER” is that there is something for everyone, no matter what you’re in the mood for. This smorgasbord of narratives is also a great fit for the oft-short attention spans of today’s crowd. We’ve got heart-pounding medical emergencies. We’ve got quirky cases. We’ve got heart-rending moments of death and dying. We’ve got juicy workplace drama. We’ve got interpersonal entanglements (the amount of bed-hopping is utterly delicious).
“ER” also wasn’t afraid to experiment with form.
In its first few seasons alone, the show had Quentin Tarantino direct an episode and it did a live episode, which is near inconceivable, given the level of blocking and complex medical jargon required. They also ventured out of the ER for episodes, whether it was saving a boy from a storm drain or an entire midlife-crisis bros’ trip in the desert, complete with breathtaking, cinema-worthy shots of cruising down the highway at night or contemplating the sunrise atop a mountain.
The show famously made great use of the Steadicam, and frenetic editing and a pulse-pounding score to jack up the tension, making you feel like you were right there in Trauma Room 1 with the docs.
Recently, a clip of the medical team running alongside their gurney toward a helicopter on the rooftop helipad made the rounds on social media, with a new generation marvelling at how spectacular it looked, how real — no CGI needed, just great cinematography and choreography.
“ER” excelled in the world of the real, tackling thorny issues, many of which still persist to this day, whether it’s DNR orders, AIDS in the workplace or homophobia, along with all the bureaucratic red tape that clogs our medical system. Think it sounds like a slog? You’d be surprised at how riveting unit funding can be when the jobs of your favourite TV doctors are on the line.
The more episodes you watch, the more you learn, whether it’s which kind of chemical burn is more dangerous or the warning signs for gallstones.
Most of us come to our TV homes not to learn, anyway, but to feel. And “ER” has made me feel more than just about any other show I’ve watched.
There are the big moments, yes, like when a beloved cast member dies of cancer, scenes on which I reflect often to this day. But it’s the small moments that have stuck with me for years; soon, they will have been lodged in my heart for decades, given that I started watching the show almost 20 years ago now, making it some of the most lasting imagery I’ve enjoyed.
•Dr. Greene crying on the train after treating a pregnant woman goes horribly wrong.
•Nurse Carol Hathaway (Julianna Margulies) sitting with a lonely dying man.
•The notoriously cold Dr. Benton (Eriq La Salle) telling his protégé, “You’re gonna be a good doctor, Carter.”
In real life, you head to the ER when you’re sick, when you need help. I, too, go to “ER” when I need comfort, solace. Home at last, I witness human goodness not only existing, but thriving. And I am cured.
You can buy “ER” on Apple TV.
