ER - 10 years

[Hadenoughofitall441]

I’m a huge ER fan and this year marks 10 years since it ended and 25 years since it started. It was an amazing show with great storylines and a great cast as well as very good guest stars.
So I just wanted to see if there are any other super fans out there. Who’s your fave dr, nurse? Fave episodes? Storyline....

My fave characters were. Doug Ross, Carol Hathaway, Luka Kovac, John carter, ray Barnett, gregg Pratt and Neela rasgotra

My fave episodes were the one where Ross rescues the kid from the storm drain, the one where Carol realises she’s still in love with Ross, the one where dr green causes a mass shooting due to his interference with a father and son, marks last days, the one when Carter goes to the Congo to find Luka, the one where the helicopter falls on top of Romano, the one where Neela finds out about rays accident, the one where gregg is in a the ambulance blast.

So if you can remember share your faves 😊

The episode “Mother’s Day” where Chloe gives birth to baby Susie and Benton’s mother died was my absolute favourite. Benton and Susan Lewis were my favourite characters, I also liked Luka (can I get a ‘90s Phwoarrr!?), Carter was a bit hit and miss for me, and she was divisive but I didn’t mind Abby.

I also loved all the Christmas specials, especially the one where no one can make it in so they just mess about all day.
The one with Ross and the storm drain is one of the best pieces of 90s TV, as is “Love’s Labour’s Lost”. It’s terrifying and really hits home the point about how dangerous child birth actually is.

I think the comparison with Grey’s Anatomy is so stark because Cook County General is a very poorly funded hospital but Seattle Grace is on the cutting edge of medicine, and only for those who can afford it. I’m not 100% on the American healthcare insurance system, but there are definite tiers and I think ER was based on treating the very poorest whilst Grey’s is about the elite.

The mere thought of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” can have me sobbing and I don’t have many tissues left so I’m going to post and run...

Abby was so complex, I don't think it's fair to say she made everyone miserable. She was also very loving in her own way. But then, as I said earlier, I really remember Abby and Luka being a couple. Abby and Carter was a little before my time so perhaps if I'd watched from the beginning, I'd feel differently. I think I also identify with her a bit, she is a bit mardy and very complicated, and has a difficult mother. I get her

indiana, that's such a good point about the contrast to Grey's and i never thought of it like that.

I am an Abby fan. Yes, she is quite pessimistic, but FFS, wouldn't you be?! That childhood, then her first serious boyfriend stole her money and left, meaning she had to give up a career she was obviously good at, and she ended up a (mostly) sober alcoholic? I think it's much more realistic than Meredith 'I'm so chipper but everyone has died around me' Grey. Though I love her too.

I adored Corday.

I really liked how the show did disability, too. I loved how Weaver's crutch wasn't mentioned or explained for, IIRC, a couple of seasons before it happens to come up why she has it. I found that really stayed with me, back when it was very unusual for disability not to need an 'explanation' whenever someone with disabilities was on screen.

Never liked Doug.

LOVED ER. Same as many, big fan of Ross, Hathaway, Carter, Lucy, Gerry, Luka.

Storm drain, mother bleeding out (Dr Greene) stabbing and so many inbetween.

ER was quality.

I always loved how Ross crossed lines for his patients never cared about the red tape, especially kids as he was a paediatrician. When him and Carol had the pregnancy scare and both realised they wanted it and then have it happen after he left I thought was a bit cruel.

Thinking about it, it was one of the first shows I remember to have properly complex female characters. They were flawed and sometimes good and sometimes shity but usually trying.

Oh man, I’d forgotten how much I loved ER. It’s making me nostalgic for TV as spectacular as ER could be.

I came to it relatively late and had to skim through some synopses on Amazon Prime to remind myself. I think it was season 6? Definitely post-Clooney.

SarahandQuack I actually didn’t like Grey’s when it first started because I was still so into ER and it’s depiction of poor, inner-city Americans in desperate need and the doctors’ frustrations with the lack of resources. When you look at them as two very different environments, you can start to appreciate rather than resent the fact that no one in Grey’s seems to have money worries because they are the elite; they want to be at the forefront of medical innovation, which is noble in its own right, because eventually the procedures and equipment developed at Seattle Grace will filter down to Cook County General in the end, I suppose.

Yes, I am up at gone-midnight comparing the relative merits of two fictional hospitals on the other side of the world. I still think ER pips Grey’s, although Grey’s has definitely matched ER for quality in certain episodes/story archs, ER was truly pioneering in both storylines and production, even things like camera use - I think it will be studied for decades to come.

Ooh I started watching er reruns when I was on ml with dc1 so after I gave birth, I treated myself to the entire boxset. Took me and DH over a year to get through it. So many happy memories!

Loved Abby, so complex and a great character. I thought Luka was a bit brooding and possessive but loved Carter, and the fact that even with his wealth and position, he struggled and didn't find love in the end. His relationship with Thandie Newton was good. Oh and Mekhi Phfier (sp?).

Cried so much when Mark passed away 😭 Don't think I can pinpoint a favourite episode, though I do vividly remember a few of them. I think my favourite storyline was Abby's struggle with sobriety.

Oh forgot about Susan, loved her so much too. The storyline about her taking on her niece was great.

It’s not my favourite episode but I’ve never cried at any tv show like I did at Marks death!
I loved carol, mark, carter and Abby. I went off it a bit when they went to defaar but I’m embarassed to admit I didn’t know about the situation there and learnt about it through ER and then doing research online

I just love er, rewatching it just now all the way through, Mark has just died and I'm waiting for a quiet moment to watch that episode so I can cry in peace!!

Some of my stand out moments we're when Gant's pager goes off, when carter falls to the floor and see's Lucy across the floor, when Mark doesn't shock the shooter in the lift, and Romano and the helicopter.

There's probably many more to go though!

I always liked Kerry Weaver, she had some shit times. Nobody liked her, Sandy dying, the custody battle for Henry, her mum rejecting her because she was gay.

I like how Carol and Doug were in the very last series, either the last or penultimate episode, never understood why they weren't at Mark's funeral though.

Most memorable moments for me

The locker name badges being added to the wall when anyone left

Neela stitching up Elgin's chest after the car crashed into the river

Benton eating the protein bar in the hospital when Carter was nil by mouth

Archie and Gates performing I Feel Good

Pratt being wheeled through the hospital after he'd died and Frank touching his shoulder

Frank when he realised who Rachel Greene was in the last episode

Carter breaking down in Benton's arms during he Fentanyl addiction, shortly before going to rehab

Maurice and the bogeyman pills

The little boy who got beaten up at school, who Wendel was trying to help and Pratt released too early. He was then killed by the boys who'd beaten him the first time

The rape of the elderly ladies, where they'd etched Whore into her stomach

And Mark letting Derek Forster die in the lift

There were paragraphs on my phone!

The episode where Carter and Lucy get stabbed is still one of the most shocking moments in tv history
There was another episode where a female gang member had been shot and one of her friends was in the room with her as they were trying to save her life. The friend then pulls out a gun and shoots the girl on the table. So shocking

LOVED this show.

Love how it was basically Carter going from newly qualified to being a mentor himself.

Carter and bentons relationship was extremely well written.

But one of the most amazing performances in the whole show was by an actor who only appeared in a few episodes - the sublime and much missed Glenne Headly.

Her characters humbling of Peter Benton while being a compassionate paediatric surgeon was incredible!

Other than her favourite characters:

Doug & carol (of course - but they should have killed him off when clooney left because it's bollocks Doug would have left carol when pregnant with his kids or that carol wouldn't have gone with him. Just didn't make sense for the characters)

Mark - heartbreaking watching him die

Carter - loved watching him mature and face demons despite his privileged background (I think there's a line in the pilot something like "I think that's the first tailored white coat I've ever seen" said by Mark? And yes heartbreaking losing his child.

Jeanie Boulet - major HIV+ storyline with Kerry being portrayed as the bad guy but really she was in a very difficult position. I also still remember the conversation Jeanie had with her husband after learning he'd given her the virus due to his infidelity

"we didn't have that kind of marriage, did we, Al. We didn't love, we didn't cherish, we didn't respect, and now you've killed me!"

"I feel much more as I get older for the characters trying to be responsible, sensible and do the right thing but get jeered at by others for being square, rather than the rebels against the system like Doug." So true. We might fantasise about being like Doug, like when he kicked the child batterer, but really he was immature and lacked impulse control and didn't always act in the best interests of patients if his self righteousness got the better of him.

That said the storm drain episode was an incredibly filmic high quality piece of television.

Lucy and Carters stabbing was so shocking and heartbreaking. I think as viewers we forget that it used to be really quite rare for main characters to be suddenly killed off, also that we didn't have preparation in the way of spoilers and knowing certain actors are leaving a show months before the character leaves, I think it was better that way and while I try and avoid spoilers as much as possible I don't always manage it.

"They did a lot with mental health and were ahead of their time" they really did, though I felt sally field was lazy casting in that respect. Would have had more impact and been more surprising if they'd cast an actor who usually played more calm, sombre roles. Sally is relatively well known for "kooky" roles and has played mentally ill characters quite famously prior to the ER role.

Loved Susan too. Really didn't want her to leave but I know the actress struggles with the negative aspects of being famous.

There was LOTS of social commentary - not really surprising when you consider the writer and producers.

Comparisons to greys I can't comment on as I've only seen 1 season of greys so far, for me it was more like an American version of "casualty" but early casualty before it got silly and soapy when the makers still cared about social commentary.

Sorry to go on about Grey’s on an ER thread (again!) but ER was so much better at social commentary. It talked about the inequalities and racism in American society perfectly, but I find Grey’s so “woke” and preachy recently that it makes me cringe, particularly Jackson who used to be one of my favourite characters.

I think ER also ended so perfectly that they’ll never be tempted to do a reboot, it really did feel complete in the final episode, which is also refreshing.

Yes! Absolutely.

Grey's can really over-preach. It is very moralising. I loved how (for example) there was a full spectrum of responses to abortion, including not just woke young things like Abbey who'd had abortions, but also Catholics like Luka who had really struggled with faith and still saw abortion in a context of faith. I thought that was very brave.

Also, honestly, I look at the way ER did Kerry's relationship (especially when she ends up operating and says 'she's my wife'. She's my wife.'), and compare that to Robbins and Torres, and I am not sure ER doesn't look more progressive.

I absolutely love Grey's for giving us a bisexual character who was consistently and emphatically bisexual. I also love Grey's for giving us a lesbian couple who argued and became hostile and even abusive to each other, because it is a reality. But I don't like that Grey's still went for a tired old 'my coming out is liked to becoming an adult in my parents' eyes' storyline, which ER never did. By the time Kerry told her mother, she had come out, met Sandy, had a baby, and Sandy had died.

Agree that the social commentary was done well. I think because it was done through people who were living it as their job. Having worked with vulnerable clients, the " this is the way people are" attitude that they all had really rang true.

The only time it hit a sour note for me was when Benton decides to get his son circumcised. There wasn't even any real debate, just del amico saying something about how for her hygiene considerations override all else and then that's it. I think that's one of the glaring differences between UK/us society - everything else like drugs and guns us liberals are in agreement but I don't know anyone in the UK who would broadly agree with the "message" of ER and also agree with babies being mutilated.

I was enjoying this thread until all the Grey's comparisons , why couldn't it just stay about ER?

As pp have said when Carter and Lucy got stabbed and they looked at each other on the floor
Seriously is it streaming anywhere? I want to rewatch the whole thing.

Few more that I've just recalled that stand out, when Benton can't save Jessie his nephew and Jackie breaking down in his arms

When Carla, Reese Benton's mum dies and Benton signing to say mummy's gone. His little moans after that had me in tears

The rapist who Elizabeth had to get close to, to get him to reveal the location of his last victim

The mum who sets herself on fire in her car in the ambulance bay after her kids get taken off her

Rachel Greene being totally vile to her dad on the Hawaii trip, she was obviously terrified of him dying but I really wanted to slap her!

I just watched the Hawaii episode again, probably been 15 years since I last saw it and I still bawled my eyes out, time hasnt changed that like!

I’m just rewatching rookie blue and then ugly betty and will be restarting ER again, usually takes me a year. I always hit a slump in series 9 which is my least favourite season, so sometimes takes me a little longer.

I remember & loved a lot of the early series.
Stopped watching it when Alex Kingston became a regular.

For me she ruins every show she's in.
A lot of the extreme story lines people are describing here are narratives I would have hated, from the later series.

I probably stopped watching at right time.