You may remember that we thought that the episode a couple weeks back, where George Clooney, Julianna Marguiles, and Eriq La Salle all made their first (and in Clooney's case, possibly last) appearances in the ER finale parade would have served as a fine and lasting tombstone for the show. Our belief in this was confirmed a week ago, when we were treated to the depressing sight (and even more offensively, the sound) of Uncle Jessie and that red-haired guy whiteblacking to "I Feel Good". Maybe there was a push to have the penultimate episode perfect all the lousy impulses of the recent soapy era?: its struggles to be cool, its desire to be liked rather than admired...
Whatever the reason, we were reminded yet again that this was once a show that was unsentimental, obtuse, and filled with unintelligible jargon that the cast themselves didn't understand. The first three or four seasons of ER, with their uninflected and rigorous allegiance to the vagaries of real emergency medicine -- and the accompanying gore -- were compelling for many millions of people because of the ragged shapelessness that the current era of the show is so afraid of. In the mid '90's ER demonstrated, in a way that at the time was sort of revolutionary, that the way a story was told was as important as the story that was being told. What was the last successful TV show before ER to have such a distinctive form, style, and structure? Twin Peaks was not a success, so we'd have to say Miami Vice. They're polar opposites of course -- Miami Vice was largely style, dressing up standard TV crime stories, whereas ER's style was no style; ER's structure, no structure -- but deep down they displayed the same commitment to their mode of storytelling and made an art of that commitment.
And we don't think this aspect of the show has been fully appreciated yet. It's hard to imagine that Steven Spielberg would have attemped the first half-hour of Saving Private Ryan without his first being a partner in ER; before that movie redefined war movie violence, ER had already proven that an audience would gladly and willingly submit themselves to surprising degrees of relentless, unstructured gore if it could convincingly and totally convey a kind of realism. Likewise, it's just as hard to imagine the plane crash sequences of Lost's pilot would ever have been possible had not ER first explored a similarly uninflected strain of televised mayhem in its opening moments.
Those are just two examples, but they're biggies, right? Give us a little more time and we could prolly come up with more.
So, will the parade of mediocrity continue tonight, as (and this is just a guess) John Carter gets up off his bed, kisses Thandie Newton, and pretty much buys County General, naming it after... who? His dad, his grandma, himself? We think it'll be about 50-50. Looks like a lot of people from the show's past are going to be around to get their "Good job for being rich, Carter" line in, including La Salle, Marguiles, and Sherry Stringfield, and we can't imagine that they'll all get interesting stuff to do. Or, for that matter, that they'll be scrubbing in for one final cardial infarcasomething.
But hey, if Kubiak gets in a good line, we'll be happy enough, we guess.
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Mekhi Phifer Jumps From "ER" To "Lie To Me"
"ER": Doug Ross, Peter Benton, Carol Hathaway Show 'Em How It's Done
"Gilmore Girl" Alexis Bledel Joins The ER Finale
