Anyone remember the medical drama ER

[ILoveMarkGreene]

I watched part of it when it was on in the nineties but since then have rewatched it several times from the start.

If I'm ever sick in hospital I want Dr Greene to treat me. He's so kind, so easy going and so reliable and trustworthy. Plus a good doctor obviously and the actor who played him I thought was one of the best on the show.

I thought Luka Kovac was a really good replacement for Doug Ross. In fact I think I liked the Luka character more. I thought he was more attractive too. He was so tall and George Clooney seemed a bit short.

The show although dated in parts (payphones, pagers, home telephones) is still a really great show. The cost to make it must have been huge as each episode contains so many extras and often they are set out of the hospital in different locations. Each episode is like watching a good film.

I want to speak like Elizabeth Corday with her clipped english accent. I like the character too although she is quite abrupt at times. I was so sad that she didn't get her happy ending when Mark died.

Romano was a great character and gave the show an angle it hadn't had before. I loved the whole arm getting cut off thing but dying by a helicopter falling on him was just silly. One of the few times I thought ER had lost the plot and was about to go downhill. Who can forget when we saw his softer side operating on his dog and of course glimpses of him being kind to Elizabeth when Mark was dying.

Kerry Weaver - the actress who plays her is only in her thirties at the start Did anyone else think she was older?

I didn't really like Cleo or Chen. Cleo just seemed miserable all the time and Chen just seemed to be a bit of smart ass. Lucy really annoyed me when she first arrived and I was glad when they killed her off.

It was very strange to see Mariska Hargitay playing a needy people pleaser character after being used to her kick ass character in Special Victims Unit.

Where did Maria Bello go. One minute she was there, the next she had left.

Loved her line when she said to Carter about giving him the tour of Cockroach Manor. What a great name for a house

It's not surprising that George Clooney ended up a heart-throb. The show really pushed this angle on him with him rescuing drowning boys and standing up for abused children. Lots of shots of him in nice clothes/tux etc and of course potraying him as having lots of women begging to go out with him and of course his father rejecting him to pull on our heartstrings and want to mother him. I don't actually think George Clooney was a very good actor. A bit wooden. Other characters far surpassed his acting skills. He was obviously good for the show though with his good looks and his lovable rogue character.

I thought Anthony Edwards who played Mark was a great actor and he got alot of great story lines that he played so well (getting beaten up, the brain tumour and the dying of course). I cried buckets when he died. So well done ER.

Carter was good and so cute when he first appeared on the show (and so young looking). I liked his character and his relationship with Dr Benton.

If I need surgery I'll have Peter B please. He was a great character who spoke his mind. It was good they showed his softer side with his son story line.

I was jeleous of Abbey when she had Carter and Luka fighting over her (sigh).

I like the congo scenes and they must have been expensive to shoot.

I liked the aids story line with Jeanie who i thought was really pretty. She played it well and was a good character.

Who didn't swoon went Luka beat up the neighbour who hit Abbey.

Last but definately not least how amazing was it that Carol was only meant to be in it for one or two episodes as a temporary character but she ended up being such a central role. I felt really stressed out though when she bought that house right next to the rail line that was falling down. Glad her and George got their happy ending.

What's your thoughts on the show. Do you agree or disagree with my comments. The show went downhill from about series 12 onwards which was a shame.

Lets have a good ole natter and feel nostalgic for the nineties and ER.

p.s. If you're younger than about 50 you might have no clue what I am talking about.

I spent the winter rewatching all series on More4!

But regarding the racism, sexism etc- I thought it was ahead of its time in addressing these issues. The 90s was a time when some people still felt compelled to stay in the closet, and I thought Weaver's gradual coming out was handled really well.

Certainly the conversations around race were very different and more open in ER compared to anything you would see on British TV then, and arguably even today (I'm thinking of the black contestants on Race Across the World often saying "We're getting unfriendly reactions from people/ not getting lifts because they don't like people being different ", without ever seemingly being allowed to utter the "R" word 🙄)

All my favourite characters in ER were female I think- Carole, Abby and Neela. Especially the former two seemed to portray much more rounded human beings than any of the men, and Neela was an understated comic genius. (Although out of the minor characters I had a massive crush on Lucien Devenko, and I think Neela should have got together with him).

It's still very popular. There are numerous Facebook groups dedicated to it.

The Dr Gant storyline completely plagiarised by Greys and George.

but it’s ok, Omar Epps went on to be a successful Dr in House 😂

I remember Kovac and carter having a testosterone off- carter reciting Shakespeare, then kovac finish off with an incredibly moving Croatian interpretation.

I remember hating Benton the first time I watched, then wondering why the second time. Wonderful actor.

It’s often mentioned here on “what should I watch” threads. Definitely not forgotten.

i did like Lucien Dubenko, and obviously Stanley Tucci’s character.

romano always though ❤️

I loved ER, too.

But how can you not like The Good Wife? It would be near the top of my Top 10 series ever. It’s very MN, looking at happens when a DH is unfaithful (and disgraced) and the previously SAHM builds a new life, very successfully too.

I have it all on DVD so I can only watch it on a computer now. I like to see British actors in it playing non- British people.

It’s a little like the original Law and Order, where they take current news items and incorporate them into the plot lines. How else would I know what a hanging chad it?

I re-watched it from beginning to end last year and was amazed how well it held up; it’s better than some current shows!

I loved Carter at the beginning but he annoyed me towards the end but loved the idea of him being fantastically wealthy and still working as a doctor and the interplay of that with Benton who had had to fight his way up the ranks was so skilfully done.

I felt Susan was representative of a lot of women who handle things well and get put upon because they put everyone else first.

Carol was beautifully played I think. The reasons for her reticence gradually revealed.
She has moved on to some high profile roles but do we see the actors who played Mark and Abby in anything nowadays? They were so good. I’ve seen the Mark actor in a few films I think?

I also liked the way that they rarely referred to Kerry’s disability but in one episode she was shown going home and she just paused in front of her front door and held her leg in pain and fatigue , and it was never referred to again. In other words, the pain she was living and working with was constant.

I love ER.... The music at the start would make me feel so happy!

Fantastic episode with Ewan McGregor as a robber in a shop who gets injured. Some other very good one off episodes too.

When Gant is on the table as a patient who went under a train and Carter realises it's him and says 'Oh sweet Jesus'..

The episode where Carter and the young doctor are stabbed.... My friend video taped it for me while I was at work and I still remember his excitement when I got home - saying I had to watch it asap as he needed to talk about it!

I liked the clerk on the door too - Jerry I think his name was.

Sometimes when my kids say 'Mum!' for the 100th time I think of when Susan got frustrated at people calling 'doctor' to her so often, when once she had wanted that so much.

Great show. Good cast, and so many strong and credible characters.

Oh that was on when I’d just given birth, used to watch it in a kind of dream state with the baby in the Moses basket in the living room.

I remember watching the very first episode on my new little tv in my bedroom in the 90s. Hooked.

I remember nurse Jackie as being absolutely twisted and nothing like er!

Loved ER until Abby arrived, she made Luka miserable, then Carter, then Luka again. She was such an emotional vampire, I used to FF through her scenes as she ruined it for me.

Loved Archie, useless doc at first but came into his own, also liked Ray, Neela, Corday and Lewis.

Saddest scene for me was Pratt dying, when they wheeled him through the ER and Frank touches him as he goes by

That single tear 😪

I’m 36 and was obsessed with ER, definitely need a rewatch!

I loved Abby and Sam. I must have started watching a couple of seasons in because I didn’t see the George clooney episodes. Carter and Benton were there, I loved Kerry weaver and I’ll always be team Luca! There were so many fantastic episodes though, do you remember the one with quite a well known actor taking Luca hostage and putting his hand in a vice? Pratt’s death is another of my most memorable moments, when he said he was scared. I loved Abby’s wedding. The congo episodes were incredible as well, I must have been 16ish watching those and I felt so uneducated, I’d never seen anything like it.

Ooh I love a good ER thread, one pops up every now and then!
Rewatching it though certain characters really annoy me now that didn’t before - Sam, Neela and Ray. And had to fast forward through some of the later seasons when it all became too soapy. Seasons 1-8 were the best.
But loved the final season with all the callbacks.

It always looked so blooming cold outside!

Used to catch it now and then and always enjoyed it. So absorbing with those multiple storylines and flawed, driven characters.

I remember glimpsing in passing an extra in a crowd scene wearing an "Obama for Senator" tee shirt - and wondering just when it was filmed🤔

Yes.. loved it

You can pay to have the ads removed. That's what I did. It's only about £3.99 a month

Don't remember that one although it definately sounds like something Romano would say. I'm on season 8 so if he hasn't said it yet maybe I still have that to come. You wouldn't want to work for him but as a TV character he was great!

that sounds like a great book club!

I'll try and update the thread once I have watched it to the very end. Might be a while though. I remember they brought back characters that had left although I can't remember how they did it exactly.

Oh yes I'd forgotten about Corday and the married doctor (the good looking, smart ass one). There were a few sex scenes there before Elizabeth found out he was married. Poor girl.

My vote for the worst and most miserable character in the whole show was Mark's first wife. She was miserable, whiny, cheated on Mark and I really just didn't like her. Anyone else think she was horrible?

Can anyone remember if they ever revealed why Carrie Weaver used a crutch ?

Didn't they have twin girls? Carole had them on her own as Doug had buggered off by then. Luka was keen to take on the role of step father but Carole wasn't having it. (Silly girl she could have sleep with him first before deciding!) Then Carole moves to Seattle I think where Doug is and you get a brief appearance by George Clooney for about 30 seconds as they reunite. That was end of season 6 I think.
Wonder how much George Clooney got paid to come back and do those 30 seconds after he left the show in season 5.