I didn’t like it after Rob Morrow left the show, either, but it was a favorite of mine until then. I find very few network shows worth watching, but Northern Exposure was a gem. Barry Corbin (Maurice) was particularly good, and particularly active in trying to keep the show going - of course, if you look at his background you discover that the man was king of the made-for-tv schlock movies and probably really appreciated having a regular gig with an interesting role.
Sharon Chrichton assembled a good FAQ on USENET, which is available here (I’m one of the MANY contributors, under a different name than I use here - it was before things like imdb existed, and I dug up a bunch of past roles for it):
http://www.landfield.com/faqs/northern-exposure-faq/
Let’s combine the ideas of “SDMB” and “Northern Exposure Fan”, and have a dopefest in Roslyn, WA.