That’s my second favorite after the one where Adam cooks dinner and Holling’s wife breaks the really expensive bottle of wine. The one where Joel loses his uncle and finally finds his minyan in town really rocked as well. I loved how respectfully they treated Judaism in that episode.
Others that stand out: the election night show, the one where whatisface’s house burns down and Holling takes an orchid, the one where Marilyn goes to the big city, the one where Maggie goes home to her family, the one where Holling’s wife (can’t remember her name) goes back to Canada and hates it, the one where she can’t speak but can only sing, the one where Joel delivers her baby, the one where Maggie realizes that Joel needs someone to talk shop to . . .
Damn. I just realized how much I miss it.
Before they wrote Joel out I think it was easily one of the best shows ever shown on television. The Bubble Jerk episodes were also very annoying.
There was an episode where the nurse (Marilyn?) went to a large city or Town (Anchorage or Seattle?) and attended a folk art type festival. They were playing some “native music” in the background.
Loved the music! Have never been able to find anyone who knew what the hell I was talking about. Anyone?
I think what made Northern Exposure so great was the large crew of recurring guest characters and the story appropriate music.
Adam and Eve.
The Flying Man.
Graham Green as Ed’s spiritual adviser.
Chris’s ½ Brother.
The Violinist.
The State Police Woman that Maurice loved.
All the others I am forgetting.
The dream sequences were always fun.
Fir na tine, I’ll ask my wife if she can track this down tonight. She is extremely good at really obscure NE tidbits and trivia.
Northern Exposure was the first show to convince me that television was not a complete wasteland, and on rare occasions it could even achieve greatness. I was too young to catch it when it originally aired, but a few years ago I saw the reruns on A&E and fell deeply in love with the show and all its characters. There will never be anything quite like it.
I’ve been buying the boxed DVD sets and I’m surprised at how well the show holds up by today’s standards. It’s not in the least dated for a show filmed in the early '90s – I wholeheartedly agree with those who say it was ahead of its me.
And yes, sadly, when Rob Morrow left, he took the show’s heart and soul with him.
I can remember going out for the night and forgetting that I forgot to set the VCR to record it. Calling my Dad from a bar and walking him through the steps of recording on a VCR. Never done that before or since.
In the Laundromat, as told by Marilyn Whirlwind
Episode 5.14, “Bolt from the Blue”
The Warrior and the Stallion
My uncle once told me about a warrior who had a fine stallion.
Everybody said how lucky he was to have such a horse.
Maybe, he said.
One day the stallion ran off. The people said the warrior was unlucky.
Maybe, he said.
The next day, the stallion returned, leading a string of fine ponies.
The people said it was very lucky.
Maybe, the warrior said.
Later, the warrior’s son was thrown from one of the ponies and broke his leg.
The people said it was unlucky.
Maybe, the warrior said.
The next week, the chief led a war party against another tribe. Many young men were killed.
But, because of his broken leg, the warrior’s son was left behind, and so was spared.
I loved Northern Exposure! Some episodes I remember:
Thanksgiving, when the natives had a tradition of throwing tomatoes at the white townspeople, and, as usual, Joel was the only one who minded.
Winter solstice, Chris’ art installation,and Holling’s hibernation. “Bon Hiver!”
Holling trying to get into the fraternal order, and being rejected because somebody or other had a grudge against Huguenots, who were among Holling’s ancestors.
Marilyn’s romantic dilemmas.
Holling and Shelly’s wedding, and Shelly’s hallucinations of people dancing.
Joel’s dream of having stayed in NYC and having a practice there. I loved Shelly as his wife, drinking Pepto-Bismol out of a martini glass.
The German clock maker fixing Maurice’s clocks and striking up a friendship with Ed.
The all-male nude run.
The two clans’ dispute over the totem pole.
The 100-year anniversary of Cicely, and the old-timer’s flashbacks. Was I the only one who thought that the old guy (played in his youth by the same actor who played Ed) wrote a lame wannabe Gertrude Stein poem?
Chris and the catapult.
Ed’s journey toward becoming a medicine man. I had a major crush on him.
Chris’ half-brother Bernard was cool, but not as cool as Chris.
The bubble guy was a loser. The show started to go downhill when he showed up, IMO.
Does anyone remember how many “traditions” Cicely had that only lasted one episode and were never mentioned again? The most egregious one, for me, was how the other doctor (Joel’s replacement) stumbled upon Cicely’s heretofore-unknown Italian-American community, just in time for the first St. Joseph’s Day celebration in 19 years.
Lame Gertrude Stein poem? Look, he was raised by wolves! Exposed to the latest in avant garde poetry just as he was learning to write, his influences were obvious.
I bought VHS versions of that episode & of “Seoul Mates”–the ecumenical Christmas show. One Christmas, Ravenswood added a raven ornament to each bottle of zinfandel…
She will see this later today. She lurks, reads and participates in Dopefests. She is developing a small Rep as the Northern Exposure expert on the Board. It is her favorite show of all time. We almost went to Alaska for our Honeymoon thanks to the show.
Jim {Hmm, she may have married me as I introduced her to the show.}
Northern Exposure is my favorite television show of all time. The weird thing is that there’s really no character that I really loved. All the main characters were likeable but they also had their annoying qualities. This made them very real to me. I think that most people who like the show secretly wished that they could escape to Cicely for a while. Plus, I loved the constant references to philosophy and psychology.
I liked the show. It would appear that I wandered away from it early in Season 5, because hardly anything beyond Shelly’s bout with singing looks familiar.
