I have been a mostly-loyal viewer of ER since the very beginning. After watching tonight’s season opener, I have become convinced that they’ve now exhausted all possible “what could happen in an emergency room” plotlines.
While there are still mildly interesting, or at least diverting, “field trip” plots, like the African trip (that appears to have killed off the most significant Croat main character on primetime), the whole “electricity goes out / water main breaks / kids shoot kids / evil virus from away / really bad winter storm” story idea bin has been used up. And almost everyone has slept with, had an affair with, or had a crush on everyone else, suffered from a major drug, personal, physical or medical crisis, and had an attack of “what am I doing in medicine” conscience.
What’s left?
One day earlier, on ED, this is an important year because they’ve blown the “anticipating the main characters getting together” tension, and need to replace it with something compelling beyond “will their relationship work out?” Witty banter — and they have some of the wittiest witty banter, finely tuned almost exactly at my demographic — will only carry them so far.
I’ll tune in to both next week.
About This Blog
I am Peter Rukavina and this is my blog. I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.
To learn more about me, read my /now, look at my bio, listen to audio I’ve posted, read presentations and speeches I’ve written, or get in touch (peter@rukavina.net is the quickest way).
You can subscribe to an RSS feed of posts, an RSS feed of comments, or a podcast RSS feed that just contains audio posts. You can also receive a daily digests of posts by email.
Comments
It’s sad about ER. It used
It’s sad about ER. It used to be a great drama, but now it’s become a soap opera. Especially that dramatic-news-pause-and-reflect-as-we-go-to-commercial moment when the phonecall came about Kovac. By the way, I don’t know this, but Kovac isn’t dead. First of all, he’s still in the opening and closing credits. Secondly, the preview for next week showed Carter going to the burned down hospital in the African village, looking for the dead Kovac. I assume that a burned body was identified as Kovac, but it’ll turn out to be mis-identified, and that Kovac is still alive. That’s just my guess.
I’m pretty tired of the “chaos in the er” episodes. I also noticed last night that many of the characters were characatures of themselves. I hope that doesn’t continue.
As for Ed, I’ve never gotten into it, so have no comments. It’s usually the death-knoll for a show, though, when the sexual tension goes away.
I heard an interesting
I heard an interesting challenge from Matt Drudge who says TV is dead.
He says without the laugh-track most shows would flop.
I can’t remember if Ed has a laugh track?
My assumption is that Kovac
My assumption is that Kovac is dead and that the sequences in the previews were flashbacks used in the next episode as Carter unpeels the layers of the story that led to his death. I would be happy to be shown wrong; televion needs for Croatian leading men.
I agree with you Peter.. I
I agree with you Peter.. I don’t want them to take my leading man from me…whatever is a girl to do.
ah, the voice..
I have never been able to
I have never been able to watch the show ‘Ed’ because I can’t shake the image of Ed doing Harvey’s and Speedy Muffler commercials.
Labatt Lite, too
Labatt Lite, too
I stopped watching when they
I stopped watching when they stuck that CURE AUTISM NOW poster on the wall… something they got against me?
Ellie and I used to watch TV.
Ellie and I used to watch TV. I Infected her. When I came on the scene there were two little kids, a really grounded woman, and a broken B&W box that “I’m not sure…” if it works who knows? Not Ellie. But then we found ourselves addicted to the dying end of the Dallas pheomenon — I had always hated it. Then we joined a season of Thirty Something, saw several seasons of Street Legal, enjoyed some variety TV, and even tuned in to a few episodes of things like Friends or Will & Grace.
I feel like I’m moving past the centre of pop culture visa vie age demographics and I’m not 43. We just don’t watch TV. I watch an episode of Daily Planet or Hot Type, and she watches the odd thing here and there.
I’ve a 35” Sony, vertically flat TV, with matching stand (smoke glass to match finish) that will go the first person who’s cash + enthusiasm for TV = something I can accept.
That Kevin admits to having
That Kevin admits to having watched a season of thirtysomething is a huge personal victory. Congratulations. (I was a thirtysomething fan to the extent that I once bought a TV at K-Mart in El Paso Texas just so I could watch a particularly important episode; I returned the TV the next day).
Hey Kevin - how much do you
Hey Kevin - how much do you want for the TV?
Add new comment