I stopped watching right before Dr. Greene died because it was too damned depressing. Other people in my household still watched and I heard about Dr. Romano losing his arms, then his head to helicopters. Dr. Carter lose his baby. The whole staff suffering from hemorrhagic fever and dying slow, painful deaths one by one.
OK, that last one didn’t happen. Yet.
I stopped watching because even though melodrama and heart wrenching is not a bad thing in a medical show, unrelenting and pitiless suffering is not. At least not to me. So how is it that I so stupidly ended up watching some of the most unrelenting and pitiless suffering ever filmed for prime time TV. Relentless and pitiless while simultaneously being not only heart wrenching but stomach wrenching too. Why could I not tear myself away when Ray Liotta’s son said, “Nice knowin’ ya.” to his dad while his dad puked blood? WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS RIGHT AND DOES NOT INVOLVE INTUBATION DID I WATCH THAT WHOLE DAMNED SHOW???
Excuse me a second while I go slit my wrists in sympathy.
He was sitting in the waiting room, waiting to be seen for a stomache ache and asking delusional questions about when his plane was leaving, then he fell on the floor.
I gather he was in prison and got out at some point? And was a serious alcoholic? Was it his stomach that was bleeding?
Those scenes with sticking that thing down his nose were way gross. What was that one that was taut, almost like it was holding his head up? The balloon thingy?
This is a rant! Do not praise Ray Liotta! Do not discuss plot points! RAGE! Rage about a great show heading straight down the crapper because it’s too goddamned depressing.
I quit watching er long ago for similar reasons Biggirl. I have my own little rule that a television show cannot use the death of a child as entertainment. Not only is it depressing, but it’s just cheap and easy writing when they can’t think up a better way to manipulate your emotions. I do have a three strikes rule, but er blew through that pretty quickly.
I have to laugh at the commercials though, because each and every episode is going to be the most important and moving and you never know who is going to die! For the commercial for the Ray Liotta episode, they even said that they “promise” it would be memorable!
I am with you BigGirl. I stopped watching before Dr. Greene died, also. When I stopped it seemed that injustice and gratuitous oppression were everywhere. I could not stand to see that week after week (and it did not make me feel better when I heard Romano went though a series of karmic paybacks). I would have loved to see Romano have some sort of repudiation-of-ass-hattedness epiphany, but they made his oppressive behavior so heinous, the only solution was for him to eventually die some horrible death.
You know, after 9/11, there’re a lot of emotional places I just won’t vicariously go to anymore. I worked very closely with the Pentagon on biographies for the lost and it just tore me to shreds. I can’t even stand to watch the news regularly anymore. I catch the Today Show for a bit in the morning and do online updates during the day…I don’t know that I will return to my old news-junkie ways.
I stopped watching about 3 series ago because the medical plotlines became so unrealistic.
I spent a lot of time screaming things like
“Oh my g-d, you don’t give that medication IV!”
“Haven’t you people heard about professional distance!”
“Why the fuck are you trying to resuscitate someone after they’ve been down for that long…let them die already!”
I know it’s tv, but it got so bad that it may as well have been set in a parallel universe, as NONE of it even resembled medical practice in this one.
Dunno about Ray Liotta, but “great episode”? You have got to be kidding. It was sheer emotional manipulation. And all the goddamn hallucination scenes were obnoxious. It was one of the worst episodes I’ve ever seen. I’m addicted to the show, but seriously . . .
At least NYPD Blue had the decency to warn me away from giving it another shot with those ads announcing that Bobby Simone’s GHOST was going to reappear and comfort Andy.
(Even if I were a ghost, I’d avoid that guy like he was Jessica Fletcher)
I dunno, I really liked the episode. Sure it was manipulative, but what’s wrong with that. People die on that show all the time, this one meant something, plus we learned a bit about Pratt, saw Abby doing good, competent work (and passing the comforting bits to a nurse like she was instructed to do), and allowing Kovatch to act like an attending. I thought Ray Liotta did a fine job with that role, even though it was clearly written with Emmy in mind.
Man, I’m torn on this one. While I still like the show, I’m having serious doubts about continuing to watch it if they continue this heavy shit. Liotta did such a good job there that I couldn’t sleep all night- it made me think too much.
I thought it couldn’t get any worse after the Congo incident where Kovach comes close to being executed, and those other poor innocent people who were- it’s almost like it really happened.
Okay, I stopped watching after Greene died too. But lemme get this straight…
Romano lost his friggen head!?!? Serious? Was it like that zombie in George Romero’s 1978 classic Dawn of the Dead?
just a little off the top…
lop.
squirt squirt
gahhhhh
Huh? What just happened?
this Dawn of the Dead re-enactment brought to you by the not ready for internet SDMB players.
Or to the ol’ goard just get lopped off at the head?
I liked this episode. I’ve commented during the last two episodes that the show has suddenly become a medical drama again, instead of a soap opera whose characters happen to work in a hospital.
That thrumming noise was awful. I thought my couch was going to be shaken apart. My dog didn’t much care for it either - at least she had the sense to leave the room.
re: the NG suction tube - I noticed they used Cetacaine - it’s an anaesthetic spray that tastes somewhat like smoked bananas and comes in a yellow bottle. At any rate, it makes getting the tube in easier. About four years ago, I was having tubes and worse threaded through my nose and into my stomach and wasn’t having a pleasant time with it. I suggested they try a squirt of Cetacaine. They say “Hmmm. Good idea.” :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
Remember the helicopter that lopped off his arm some time ago? Well, it came back to finish the job. Due to some thinly contrived disaster with a helicopter taking off from the hospital roof (engine failure? wind shear?) the chopper flipped over and crashed down into the ambulance bay, right where Romano had been standing. I think about all they found of him was his gold stethoscope.
He was out of prison and went into some detail about the hooch he drank while inside and the regular storebought stuff he kept drinking when he got out. They went down his esophagus with a tool meant to stop the bleeding but couldn’t control it. The red taut thing was some sort of balloon meant to press on the blood vessels and stem the bleeding?? Bottom line, liver and kidney failure.
I didn’t understand how they had time for all those docs to just stand around, especially during the times when nothing new was being tried. Don’t they have a packed waiting room to get to?
And when the specialists are discussing the possible procedures: “Hey! I’m right here!! Talk to me”
Here’s the point- if anyone is having a happy monogamous relationship- you know something terrible will happen to it and them. When Carter was so happy with the impending baby and so much in love I said to myself “That baby is doomed”… I was right
When they intoduce a freind or relative- you just KNOW that person is going to end up in the ER very soon, victim of some tragedy.
It just gets ridiculous. No one is allowed to be happy, no one has a long term monogamous relationship, and bad things happen to every one of them.
Basicly, they are letting Soap Opera writers come up with the plots.
