Northern Exposure finally available for streaming on Amazon Prime

Cafe Society
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The loveable and quirky early-90’s TV show Northern Exposure has just be released on Amazon Prime streaming – the first time the show has ever been available to stream.

‘Northern Exposure’ Streaming On Prime Video (deadline.com)

The Amazon episodes have most of the original music, something the DVD releases did not include. The soundtrack absolutely made this show (well, ok, maybe not made the show, but it certainly contributed significantly to the overall atmosphere) and to have most of the original music is outstanding.

I know what I’m binging this spring.

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We’re watching the first season currently. I never saw it when it originally ran in the early 90’s

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I feel it holds up very, very well. Since the whole premise revolves around a community somewhat removed from the hustle of the modern world (modern for 1990), the lack of computers and cellphones isn’t really jarring. The only time it feels even remotely dated is when some outside, obscure character comes into town driving a new car that the townspeople comment on or make note of – a 1990 or 1991 model new car. I’ve seen the series 5 or 6 times and that only happens twice that I can recall.

The first season is a little too quirky – it really finds its legs in season 2. But it’s still quite enjoyable.

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I’ve added it to my queue. I will enjoy seeing it again.

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Me three

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Well, Maurice Minnifield’s Archie Bunker-level bigotry is a lot more glaring to the modern eye. And there is the whole elderly man marrying a teenager thing.

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That was kind of icky back in its first run, too, but it seemed to work out okay and not be so weird as time went on. Also, the actor and character were in their early 60s, so not exactly elderly.

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Was Shelly supposed to be a teenager? I thought she had been a beauty pageant veteran who Maurice brought to Cicely, so I thought early 20s. The actress was 25 when the show started FWIW.

I thought the indigenous characters were one of the beset parts of the show, and really gave it that “not quite what you expect” angle - it was always a treat to see Ed or Marilyn.

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When I got my first professional job out of college, I started working at an office park in Redmond, Washington. Someone said that one of the other buildings had been converted to soundstages for filming Northern Exposure. Based on some of the things I saw outside, I believe it. I never ran into any of the cast members, though.

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I remember loving the show at the time, with reservations. The characters were unlike anything else on TV at the time, especially loved the Native representation.There was a lot of quirk, but it was amiable and never became twee. I admired that they would occasionally break the mold when it came to hour-long drama: one episode just had Maurice and Holling on a camping trip, and the only other character was Chris reading “The Call of the Wild” on the radio. The episode where a climactic scene of potential violence was defused by the characters breaking and debating what the show would actually do (“We play to a sophisticated audience, they’d never buy that!”) was another good one. And though I didn’t watch the last season or so (didn’t have a TV for a while while in uni), I did see the final episode, and I found the very last scene, with the soundtrack playing a song that went “The sun’s going down on our town…” very touching.

That said, I also remember a stretch of episodes in which the environmentalism went over-the-top preachy and cornball; this was around the time of Earth Day in 1991, I think; the Miss Twin Peaks Pageant also featured pious lectures about the environment around this time, if memory serves. I oddly remember terrible continuity editing. And the hippie-ish Chris in the Morning might be odd to watch now, knowing John Corbett’s real-life subsequent hard bank to the right politically.

Might give it a go on Amazon, at least a few episodes.

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The Native Americans were indeed the best part. Unflappable Marilyn. Adorable Ed. Fount-of-wisdom Graham Greene playing Ed’s uncle. Ed’s invisible old wise man. The Christmas pageant with the narration of a folk tale and Marilyn dancing in full regalia just got me in the feels.

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Perhaps, but the show was quite progressive in that all the other characters pushed back against him when his bigotry showed – for instance every time he went head-to-head against Lester Haines he got his ass handed to him. Then there was the whole story arc around Maurice finding out he had a Korean son and subsequently had to come to terms with his bigotry (Chris specifically called him out on it).

One thing I am curious about is if they took out any of the overtly racist language. I distinctly recall in the pilot Maurice calling Ed a half-breed in the scene where Maurice shows Joel his office for the first time and complains that Ed didn’t fix it up before he arrived. On the Amazon episode he calls Ed an indian in that scene. I’m not going to dig out my DVD of the pilot to double check, but I’m pretty sure that was dubbed.

This was addressed several times in the series. The characters acknowledged that there was a considerable age difference but since there wasn’t really a power imbalance – Holling wasn’t her “rescuer” as Shelly was the one who initiated and really worked to build the relationship – it didn’t seem too weird and they were presented as a normal, healthy couple. IIRC in one of the early seasons they said she was supposed to be 19 and he 62. She had been married previously and he found out later that he had a daughter he didn’t know about, and both those things were handled fairly… well, normally. She was also written and portrayed as quite mature for her age which I think made the age imbalance less overt to the viewers.

Is this when they introduced Mike Monroe (Anthony Edwards)? I liked Monroe’s portrayal, but the character sucked – he was just a stereotype; the fact that he was written out of the show by leaving to join Greenpeace cinched it.

There was some of this. Sometime later in the series Maurice is shown with a broken leg (the result of IRL horse riding accident) but it is not acknowledged in the show. He’s just limping along with this huge cast like it’s his character’s normal livery. That was the most jarring for me that I recall.

Elaine Miles grew up dancing on a Powwow circuit so her dancing in the show was 100% genuine. Marilyn was my favorite of the regular cast after Joel.

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I mean shot-to-shot continuity issues. There’s a scene in which Maurice is imagining speaking to his child self while holding something (keyring? native item?) and in each consecutive shot it’s held up to his face, then away, then out of frame, then back again. Minor quibble, but I remember seeing stuff like that a lot on the show, enough that I remember it 30+ years later (it’s like Paulie’s cigar in Goodfellas but over and over and over again). That would be the responsibility of the script supervisor or a continuity person on set to keep an eye on.

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Oh, ok. I never caught that stuff, but I don’t really look for it so I probably wouldn’t notice.

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I’m a movie nerd with ADHD. That stuff leaps out with trumpets blaring to me.

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I hadn’t heard that John Corbett’s embraced right-wing politics. I do know that Janine Turner has gone full MAGA.

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Not-so-fun-fact: Martin Pang, the actor who played Maurice’s son, was a loser who later went to prison for 23 years (sentenced to 35) for an arson fire which caused the deaths of 4 firefighters. He burnt down his family’s Chinese food factory for the insurance money.

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The only character I remember strongly disliking was Adam, played by Adam Arkin. His whining voice drove me nuts.

Elaine Miles, the actress who played Marilyn, was featured in an episode of The Last of Us.

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Two favorite episodes (of many – it was a brilliant show). Each of these (and all) episodes had multiple plot points. I’m just citing one in each episode.

Seoul Mates [S. 3, Ep. 10]
It’s Christmas, and Shelly is missing the Christmas bells and smells of her Catholic girlhood. To bring her joy, Holling fills the town hall with candles and sings the Schubert Ave Maria. (John Cullum was an accomplished Broadway musical star and singer.)

In Shofar, So Good [S. 6, Ep. 3]
As Dickens didn’t write, Joel meets the ghosts of Yom Kippur past, present, and future. The ending is hilarious-- Joel frantically rushes to repent and make amends as the Gates of Heaven are closing (closing of the gates reflects the liturgy of Yom Kippur).

Many, many other great episodes…

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IMDB says the actor who played Duk Won was James Song – his only acting credit.