Reviewed by Stuart O'Connor
Stars Parminder Nagra, Maura Tierney, Linda Cardellini, John Stamos, Scott Grimes, Mekhi Phifer,
Stanley Tucci, Leland Orser, Sam Jones III, Goran Visnjic, Leland Orser, Deezer D | Created by Michael Crichton
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £44.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 900 minutes | Directed by Christopher Chulack & others
It's funny coming back to ER after a few years away. I watched it pretty religiously up to season 9 or 10, I think it was. But I gave it away because it was feel a bit too much teh same, like they'd done it all before. There were also too many of my favourite characters gone (Mark Greene, Doug Ross, Susan Lewis, Carol Hathaway, John Carter and "Rocket" Romano, to name but a few) and too many new characters I didn't really care for all that much (Archie Morris, Luka Kovac and Greg Pratt).
But with this being the second-last season ever, I thought it was worth returning to see it out. And sitting down to watch ER again is like slipping on a pair of comfortable old slippers. In the interim I've been watching Grey's Anatomy (I know, I know, but it's a guilty pleasure) and I'd forgotten just how gritty and more medicine-based ER was – Grey's sometimes gets a little TOO soapy, a little too caught up in the doctors' private lives. Making the trek back from Seattle Grace to County General was rewarded by the fact that there had been quite a few changes in my absence – some for the better, some not.
For a start, characters that rubbbed me up the wrong way (particularly giinger-boy Morris) had been softened and made much more personable. Plus Stanley Tucci pops up as a special guest star to take the reins of the ER for a few episodes. Sweet – it's wonderful to see an actor of his calibre on series television. It's also great to see Neela Rasgotra (Nagra) now a fully-fledged surgeon and pretty much the main character. Also more to the fore is nurse Samantha Taggart (Cardellini) who I always kinda liked. She gets involved with one of the new docs, Tony Gates (Stamos), who seems to be trying to fill Clooney's handsome heart-throb shoes.
OK, time for a few of the negatives. For a start, the iconic opening theme music has gone. What were the producers thinking? Big mistake – that music really set the tone for all the medical mayhem and human drama that was to come. And the camera still rarely stays still – ER is still more frantic than a real-life hospital emergency room, with far more shouting and rushing around than really goes on. And they still use the defibrulator paddles way too many times. It might be good drama, but it's not true medicine – barely an episode goes by when they don't shock it to someone. And like many TV dramas, there's a little too much reliance on cliches in the scripts – such as, in this season, the suicidal goth that hangs out in online chatrooms, and the gorgeous twins who "do everything together" who come in to tempt the trying-to-be-faithfu Morris. And my biggest bugbear for this season: The Luka/Abbie (Tierney) marriage dramas that have turned into a rather bad soap opera. It's tedious, and I for one gave up caring years ago.
Gripes aside, it was great to return to this show to find it, for the most part, still the best medical drama going, with a sharp blend of humour and genuinely moving human drama. Plus they get some terrific guest stars turning up – people like Steve Buscemi, Aida Turturro, Peter Fonda, Howard Hesseman, James Woods and Ray Liotta. This is not the best season of ER – I still miss the brilliant original cast, and it suffers a little from being shortened by the 2008 writers' strike – but as a prelude to the 15th and final season, it's not too bad at all. ER is still one of the finest ensemble dramas ever made for television.
EXTRAS ** Just some deleted scenes (although they call them Outpatient Outtakes, for some unknown reason); plus ER At 300, a panel discussion featuring most of the cast to celebrate the 300th episode, filmed in front of an audience.