After 15 seasons, the award-winning hospital drama ER comes to an end on Thursday, April 2nd. I first started following the goings on at Chicago's County General in season 2. Since then, my viewing habits of the show have gone in spurts (watching it for several seasons, missing a couple of seasons, rinse and repeat). Over the years, it's provided countless memories from the tragic to the humorous. Below (in no particular order) are 13 of my favorite moments/episodes from the series.What are some of your favorite memories of ER?
1. The Time of Your Life- Physician's Assistant Jeanie Boulet bonds with Dr. Anspaugh's young son Scott, who's dying from lymphoma. His favorite song was "Good Riddance (The Time of Your Life)" by Green Day, which Jeanie sang to him as a farewell.
2. ER Meets The Breakfast Club- Carter, Susan, Luka, Abby, and Michael were forced to attend sexual harassment training after the horseplay that ensued when they discovered a dominatrix’s bag of tricks at work (one of them put a dildo in Kerry Weaver's locker). The identity of the culprit was revealed at the end of the episode.
3. Can you dig it?!- Dr. Peter Benton dresses up as Shaft for his date with Elizabeth Corday on Halloween. Although I liked the fact that Peter was a serious dude, it was cool to see his lighter side. I also thought that Peter and Elizabeth made a great couple.
4. Carter and Lucy Knight are both stabbed by a schizophrenic patient. Lucy dies from her wounds.
5. It's a knockout! - Peter Benton has to start an operation without an attending present. Dr. Romano shows up and tries to kick him out of the OR, but Romano is drunk and Peter has to ask him to leave. Romano goes to hit Peter, but he misses and falls and knocks himself out. I think I might have applauded when that happened!
6. Paging Dr. Gant- The ER staff is working frantically to save someone who jumped in front of a train. Because a young intern (Dr. Gant) is supposed to be on duty, he is paged by one of the staff members. The ER staff is shocked when the victim's pager goes off... it turns out that the man who jumped in front of the train was Dr. Gant! He apparently was depressed over constantly being browbeaten by the brusque Dr. Peter Benton.
7. Mark Greene is viciously assaulted in a hospital bathroom. The viewers never found out the identity of the attacker.
8. The Handless Horse's Ass- After being grabbed in the ass a second time by Dr. Romano, Nurse Samantha Taggart pushes him against the wall, unscrews his prosthetic hand, and gives it to Dr. Susan Lewis. Romano claimed that he couldn't control his prosthetic hand (he lost his left arm after backing into the tail rotor blades of a helicopter).
9. The return of Doug Ross, Carol Hathaway, and Peter Benton- In one of the final episodes of the series, three ER alumni return in two separate stories that wind up tying together. Peter shows up to visit old friend and former student John Carter, who is awaiting a kidney transplant. Doug and Carol, now married and living in Seattle, help a grieving grandmother (played by Susan Sarandon) donate her grandson's organs. Unbeknownst to both Doug and Carol, Carter is the recipient of the grandson's kidney.
10. Where Is Radar O'Reilly when you need him?- Dr. Romano's bad luck with helicopters comes to a grisly end as he is crushed to death by one.
11. Road Trip- Doug and Mark drive to California to settle the affairs of Doug's father, who was killed in a car accident. I know that some fans didn't like the non-hospital episodes, but I enjoyed the change of pace.
12. John Mahoney guest stars as an elderly drag queen who's in a battle with his partner's family over how best to treat his partner's kidney failure. the close of the episode, John's character sings the Dean Martin tune "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You".
13. Carol Hathaway leaves Chicago and reunites with Doug Ross
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17 comments:
Malcolm, I swear I am in tears reading this. ER first started in 1994 when I was living in Japan; I read about it in TV Guide and asked my parents to tape it for me and send it to me, which they did. Every month, I'd get 4 episodes which my friends and I would watch. So ... ER reminds me so of my parents and since they're both gone now, it'll be hard to watch tomorrow night's last episode. Very sad. Sorry...and for what it's worth, I thought Peter and Elizabeth made a great couple too :)
I have never missed an episode....EVER! I even gave birth on a Thursday, and watched it that night in the hospital.
My favorite? I think when Luca and Abby got married.
Love's Labor Lost...I can not watch that episode. I cried like a baby season one when it first aired, and will not watch it in re-runs. Same holds true for the episode where Carter's baby dies and they had to deliver.
The past few weeks have been horrible for me...I have cried and cried...
I know...I need to get a life! :)
Gosh, I watched that show in the very beginning but haven't in... Well, we haven't had a TV for 7 years, so at least that long. I really liked the way they kept the tension going and continued the character's stories.
You left a great comment on my blog - I wanted to say, that I really hate it when people only care if they are effected - if they are laid off, if they don't have health insurance, etc. Maybe that's why the poem is on my mind.
I haven't watched it in a long time, but I vividly remember first seeing Clooney there.
Anything w/ Carter I wish he had been happier
Never watched it myself. I'm not much of a TV person unless it's sports. I'll be watching baseball while you're watching ER.
My 13 is all about 'icky' foods. Won't you join me for a bite?!!!
I remember almost all of those. I like the show but I think now the time has come to put it out of its misery. It has never been the same since they first got rid of the originals and then decided to purge all the characters over 40 in order to appeal to adolescents.
Wow, I can't believe ER has been on that long.
I used to watch faithfully but then my schedule changed and I couldn't watch on Thursdays anymore. I gave up on recording it as I never got around to watching.
I remember most of those! Great list!!
A great series, but due to the scheduling of it over here, I stopped watching quite a while ago. Still, I remember #6 and especially #7 vividly. The other one that lingers in my mind was the episode where everything went wrong for Dr. Greene when a woman died suring childbirth, but that was way back in the first season.
Hi, Malcolm! Enjoyed your ER post, even though I sort of faded out of watching the show years ago...I'm not sure why. It was a really good show.
As for my TV actresses post--yep, it was a repeat, but I did cop to it at the beginning of the post! :) I ran it in April of 2008. I have noticed it is popular with guys...makes them remember their childhood crushes. :)
I'm trying to get back into the swing of Thursday Thirteen, but time was at a premium this week.
Thanks so much for stopping by and commenting!
I loved the one where Felicity Huffman played a mom who had an anurism or a stroke and the whole episode was told through her eyes and what she was thinking the whole time she appeared to be in a coma to everyone else.
I watched the final episode of ER tonight (I tivoed it) and I must say I got misty. Several of the old schoolers came met to remininsce. I loved that Dr. Green daughter showed up wanting to be a physician.
ER was the one show I never missed an episode of (until the past two years or so). I remember every single one of your 13...great memories. I was really impressed with how they filmed the final episode as well. I'll never forget the episode when Mark dies, and they played "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by a Hawaiin artist. I have it on my ipod, and it always reminds me of Dr. Greene....cuz you know he was real and everything.
ER was the one show I never missed an episode of (until the past two years or so). I remember every single one of your 13...great memories. I was really impressed with how they filmed the final episode as well. I'll never forget the episode when Mark dies, and they played "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by a Hawaiin artist. I have it on my ipod, and it always reminds me of Dr. Greene....cuz you know he was real and everything.
ER is one of my favorite tv shows. I like this one due to its cast, storyline and the performance of every characters. All over its an amazing show. You can also Watch ER Episodes from here.
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