In the third season, we had Florence Hufnagel (Florence Halop), one of the most obnoxious characters ever to grace television screens, bickering with each resident and being rude to everyone, only to find herself a victim of inconsistent medical care.
St elsewhere serial#
There were even serial rapists in the second and third seasons, way before #metoo was a thing. Eligius had so many storylines weaving through its halls, it’s hard to know where to begin: We had doctors sleeping with each other, doctors bickering with each other, and doctors dying not able to be saved. If those names sound familiar, they went on to have careers in television that proved to be quite varied: Masius created Touched by An Angel and Providence, while Fontana created Oz and Homicide: Life on the Streets. John Masius and Tom Fontana came up with the show’s inventive storylines. Despite its nickname, it also had the best reputation for being a teaching hospital, where young residents emerged as good doctors. Elsewhere” because it had a background of being a dumping place for patients who were too poor, too sick, and too much for a “regular” hospital. Eligius but it received the nickname “St. Never a rating hit, this show about a rundown hospital in Boston. It’s the 30th anniversary of one of the most bizarre ends to a show in television history. Okay! If you are still reading, congratulations–because it’s a big day for St. Elsewhere, skip this essay.īetter yet, try to see if you can find any old episodes of the show online.īecause this essay won’t make sense if you haven’t watched the show.
St elsewhere tv#
Eligius.Warning: If you’ve never watched the TV show St. ER? Grey's Anatomy? Scrubs? Hapless interns all, pale echoes in the hallowed but crumbling halls of St. The show killed off its cast members with as much unsentimental abandon as it dispatched its often impressive roster of guest stars, which during season one included a baby-faced Tim Robbins as an unrepentant terrorist bomber and, most memorably, Doris Roberts and James Coco as a co-dependent homeless couple in the Emmy Award-winning episode "Cora and Arnie" (both included here along with 20 other episodes, an audio commentary, and several featurettes). Others would join on in subsequent seasons: Alfre Woodard, Mark Harmon, Bruce Greenwood. Jack Morrison William Daniels' insufferably egotistical heart specialist without a heart, Dr. Philip Chandler David Morse's empathetic, tousle-haired resident, Dr. Elsewhere's enormous ensemble cast was probably bigger than its audience, but a few standout performers quickly rose to the top: Denzel Washington's ambitious but compassionate Dr. The show's consistently low numbers (highest Nielson rating: 49) kept it hovering on the critical list, its tenuous life-support system subsidized by upscale sponsors who coveted the show's small but affluent viewership. Elsewhere was an armchair sociologist's wet dream, brimming with hidden non sequiturs, homages to pop-culture icons (keep a keen ear open for familiar names over the hospital PA), and sly in-jokes that flew right under NBC censors' radar ("she placed her tulips on my organ"). In addition to claiming one of the all-time great theme songs (the Eighties were the golden age of TV tunes), St.
St elsewhere series#
Elsewhere would last for six stellar seasons, growing increasingly surreal until finally imploding with one of the most controversial series finales in broadcast history, complete with a flatlining MTM cat logo.
A few savvy critics noted the show's debt to Hill Street Blues, which had premiered one year earlier. Elsewhere premiered in 1982, initially befuddling the curious few who tuned in: Was this a comedy series? A medical drama? A soap opera? Elsewhere's layered storylines "arcs" in the parlance of the Eighties were a near-flawless assemblage of diverse subgenres surgically joined together by a vision that was simultaneously bleak, humanistic, and often seriously skewed. The brainchild of Joshua Brand and John Falsey (who would later conjure the equally cultish Northern Exposure), St. Elsewhere: That's where deportees from the city's more prestigious medical centers find themselves diverted. The decrepit old teaching hospital on Boston's South Side is better known as St. Like visitors to a Roach Motel, patients may check in, but they seldom check out. Eligius Hospital, because the harried staff there probably won't. 20th Century Fox, $39.98 God save the luckless souls who find themselves admitted into St.
0 kommentar(er)
