My timer-record is evidently on strike so I missed my favorite show. Anything new with Abby & family? What was Luka’s accident about? Anything with Corday? Weaver? Don Cheadle? Nothing’s too trivial.
IMHO, last night’s ER was not very good! They told the story “backwards”. Which is to say, they started with Luka and Harkins coming into the ER after the car crash (whcih was entirely Luka’s fault), and then, went back in time, a couple of minutes at a time, to what, in a regular episode, would have been the beginning of the episode. Luka, it would seem, was upset because he missed an advanced leukemia diagnosis on some poor 19-year-old guy who presented with flu symptoms. Abby’s family wasn’t addressed at all, neither was Corday. I kept thinking that , at the end of the hour, something would clarify that would pull it all together (somehow, I thought it would have something to do with the money that woman gave him last week), but it didn’t happen. I’ve always respected ER for taking chances and breaking new ground, but what they did last night just didn’t work for me.
I agree. It felt like the “backwards” story structure was just there for show, there was no reason, plot-wise, why it needed to be that way. And the show wasn’t that interesting in the first place… which perhaps was the reason they decided to “spice it up” by editing it backwards.
The one thing I felt was a nice touch was the music. In several scenes, the musical notes were obviously played backwards. It was a nice audio accompaniment to what they did with the editing. However, it would have worked better with a stronger story.
No Corday, no Don Cheadle, and very little Weaver apart from her acting her usual brusque self. Virtually no Carter as well. And never enough Romano.
The episode, as you may know, was edited so it ran, for the most part, in reverse. Susan held a Christmas party at her place for the ER staff, where they exchanged gifts and Luka got really drunk. He hit on Abby in a sad, wistful manner; she not unkindly rebuffed him. Erin ended up escorting Luka back to his place, where they kissed and he passed out. There was no sex. The next day, the ER is swamped and Weaver demands Abby call Luka in, although it’s his day off. Luka and Erin go into the ER together, sparking gossip. He kind of sleepwalks through several cases, the details of which I missed because I was on the phone. Then things got a little fuzzy for me. I think Luka gave Erin a ride home at the end of her shift, where I think they talked a little about the previous night as he careered through the icy streets. Swerving to avoid a homeless person, Luka crashes the car. He’s okay, just a cut on his head, while Erin’s a little more out of it. Luka does some triage on the father and son in the other car involved. Erin, however, is not doing well and she collapses in the street. She’s taken to County, where her condition was left unresolved at the end of the episode, and Luka appears guilt-stricken and stunned at the turn of events.
I found the unconventional time structure a little confusing and gimmicky, particularly with things like the cut on Luka’s cheek where the little person punched him. However, he looked so devastating handsome when asleep I forgave nearly every gripe I had.
Luka was also hungover as heck, accounting for the “sleepwalking.”
Pop culture/trivia note: The dad of the hockey player was John Kapelos, who played the custodian in “Breakfast Club,” who–when he was in Shermer HS, had been voted “Most Likely to Succeed” as shown in his annual photo at the beginning of the movie.
And also the oily variety bohunk in Sixteen Candles.
I knew he was familiar; thanks Mjollnir for the trivia tidbit!
Well, with that little bit of info, I just wanted to toot in with my own personal pride in recognizing an actor/actress I haven’t seen in a while. The mother of the transexual 14 year old in last week’s episode was Judith Hoag…Ms. April O’Neal herself from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Took me three frickin’ days to figure that out.
I didn’t see last night’s episode, but from what I’m reading, I didn’t miss much.
The part that confused me also on the backwards thing was that it seemed some scenes were out of order…or something. I also thought that by the end of the show we didn’t know any more than we knew at the beginning of the show…namely what is wrong with Luka?? He has been on a path of self-distruction for the last several episodes and they have simply not shed any light on the underlying reasons for it.
Realizing he messed up with Abby, crisis of faith, a little burnt out with the pace of being an ER doc…
He was also in Forever Knight as Nick’s partner, Don Schanke. (I didn’t realize the same actor was also in the Breakfast Club)
And also possibly Luka was troubled by having been reminded of his own past (and lost family), when he had to treat having been reminded of it by the former ustashi, who had been attacked by someone who had recognized him from WWII.
That guy also played Letterman’s producer, or something like that, in The Late Shift.
“Hey Brian, how ya doin?”
“Your dad works here?”
I didn’t like the episode that much, but at least for me the backwards structure did give a slightly different take on what happened. I felt a little more sympathetic towards Luka after seeing how the chain of events unfolded. He was driving like a jerk because he was mad about missing a diagnosis which may have happened because he was so hungover because he got drunk the night before thinking he had the next day off. He was planning on having the day to recover and Weaver dragged him in knowing he wasn’t in the best of shape. I had a little less harsh of a judgement of him than I think I would have if the story had unfolded in the usual way. I think the events at the beginning of the story wouldn’t have had as much weight.
I agree with cmburns. In the beginning of the episode, I was thinking, “What happened to my lovable, capable Dr Kovac?”. By the end of the episode, after seeing the crap that led up to the car crash, he came off a little more sympathetic.
To clarify: I don’t think he missed the diagnosis on the leukemia guy. Or if he did, it was understandably difficult. The real problem with that case was that Luka screwed up when he put the airway in the kid. He put the tube down his esophagus instead of his trachea, and he didn’t perform the checks that would reveal his error, so the kid was without oxygen for a while until Abby found his error. That left the kid brain dead, or something similar. It was a really bad error that he made because he was hung over and careless.
I kept waiting for Guy Pearce to show up as a patient, and have one of the nurses gasp in surprise when he removes his shirt!
What’s the deal with Luka? They’re turning him from an almost too perfect Dr. Studmuffin to a total jerk. Is it PTSD or a sexual addiction or something they haven’t figured out yet?
I noticed that the leukemia guy’s girlfriend mentioned his parents were lawyers (while she was talking to Abby about being nervous meeting them).
I smell a lawsuit! I think that was a very obvious setup for a future plotline.
Heh, that’s almost as bad as the time they pumped Ensure into my Dad’s lungs instead of his stomach when he was in the hospital a few years back. My Dad survived that, though.
Why did they have to crash the Viper? What a beautiful car. . .