# What possessed me to watch ER last night after 2 seasons? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 12, 2004, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401 "2004-11-12T16:41:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Paisley\_Park](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Paisley\_Park](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paisley_Park)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/21 "2004-11-12T22:47:05Z")
Has anything bad ever happened to Frank? ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/22 "2004-11-12T22:56:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Has anything bad ever happened to Frank? Yup. He had a heart attack not too long ago, and was, of course, treated in the ER. His daughter (with Down’s syndrome) has also been in for something, hasn’t she? I stopped watching earlier this season. It had already gotten far too melodramatic for my taste, but my father-in-law died earlier this year from a combination of nasty illnesses/organ failures. My husband and I both felt like watching fake suffering was hitting too close to home. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/23 "2004-11-12T23:03:03Z")
> [@Paisley Park](#): > > Has anything bad ever happened to Frank? Didn’t he have a heart attack or something? But no, nothing really bad will ever happen to Frank because he has a daughter with Down’ Syndrome, so he gets the misunderstood-hardass-with-a-heart-of-gold-and-a-disabled-daughter pass. > [@rDeth](#): > > 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. I keep hoping they \*won’t \* bring Susan back full time, so she can stay happy and married to Mr. Breastfeeding and have a live, healthy child. I couldn’t figure out why they were letting three - count 'em THREE! Abby, Kavoc and Pratt - doctors stand around staring at sick guest star of the week while they had a full waiting room. Dude, we know he’s Ray Liotta! Get over it and get back to work! Did all the med students just disappear or suddenly become real competent or what? The one bit I liked? Sara Gilbert stayed perfectly still, standing in the same exact spot for the last 35-40 minutes of the show. She was just paralyzed or something, quietly watching her first death, holding onto her clipboard. And no one noticed. No one asked her if she was OK. No one took her to the ambulance bay for a coffee and a hug and a “man, this job is rough sometimes” speech. At the end, she’s still standing there. Stunned. And alone. Cue the credits. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2004, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/24 "2004-11-13T16:30:16Z")
> [@DoctorJ](#): > > 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’s interesting. I stopped watching almost two seasons ago, when it seemed (from the commercials) that the show had become all about going to exotic locations, getting involved in car chases and shootouts, and generally trying to be a cross between a soap and an action movie. On the few occasions i’ve caught a glimpse of the actual show over the past year or so, i’ve seen absolutely nothing to indicate that it’s worth returning to. If it actually goes back to its roots and cuts out all the explosions and shit, i might be tempted to give it another go. > [@dooku](#): > > 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) Yeah, that was pretty fucking lame, IMHO. I’ve stuck with **NYPD Blue** because i like some of the characters, and i actually think that the Andy Sipowicz character is really well-written and is also extremely well-acted by Dennis Franz. But i long ago got tired of the fact that the detective squad (or at least half of it) seems more like a model agency. Baldwin Jones looks like a refugee from an _Esquire_ photo shoot, and the two female detectives look like they’ve stepped out of _Maxim_ magazine. And it was bad enough that the Sipowicz character was married to one attractive woman (ADA Costas), but then they had to go and put him with another one, who is twenty years younger than him. Give me a break! Oh well, this is the last season, so there are only about a dozen episodes left. I can’t give up on it now. I just wish they’d releases seasons 3-6 (with Jimmy Smits as Bobby Simone) on DVD. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2004, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/25 "2004-11-13T17:43:46Z")
> [@](#): > > 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. > [@](#): > > Basicly, they are letting Soap Opera writers come up with the plots. I gave up part way through season three when it gave up any pretense of a “medical drama” to become a full-blown soap opera. I bump into it once in a while and the writing and acting still seems to be _generally_ OK, but the soap elements have been too heavy for a lo-o-o-ong time. ---
**Author:** ![LorieSmurf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a587f6/32.png) [@LorieSmurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LorieSmurf)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2004, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/26 "2004-11-13T20:17:30Z")
I could have written the OP word for word. Those are the reasons I stopped watching ER several seasons ago, and i watched every episode faithfully before that. It just got to be too damn much. And I tuned in to the Ray Liotta episode, inexplicably, as well. Weird. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2004, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/27 "2004-11-13T22:33:03Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > Dr. Romano losing his arms, then his head to helicopters… No shit. Really? (I’m going to hell for laughing about this, right?) ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2004, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/28 "2004-11-13T22:52:33Z")
Dammmit, one of my favorite theater actors is going to be on NYPD BLUE in a coupla weeks, so I have to break my vow of disinterest. I hate it when they do that. “Ooooh, I get to see Martin Moran or (fill in name here) for free? Kewl–wait, he’s on THE PRACTICE?! Aw man!” ☹ ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2004, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/29 "2004-11-14T00:04:54Z")
Jimmy Smits’ appearance on Blue wasn’t as hokey as it might have been. He wasn’t a ghost so much as he was the product of Andy’s near-breakdown. He said everything Andy needed to hear. I teared up anyway. It was a bad TV week for anyone with tear duct problems, what with HBO’s Letters Home, and Liotta on ER, and then Bobby Simone on Blue. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2004, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/30 "2004-11-14T00:21:09Z")
I always watch ER with my 91-year-old mother; it used to be her favorite show. Lately she’s been confused by the fact that they have so many concurrent plots in each episode, plus the “regulars” who supposedly are off the show, then reappear the following week. Well, Thursday’s episode was straightforward enough for her to follow, and she was amazed by Ray Liotta’s acting (she had never seen him before). The only confusion was with the hallucinations (I mean the character’s, not my mother’s). We both thought the son would have a last-minute change of heart and show up, offering to donate half his liver and a kidney - only to be told he arrived 5 minutes too late. I’m surprised with all the show’s schlocky melodrama, they didn’t do that. And that little painting: it would have been much more poignant if the character had been a better artist; that painting was crap. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2004, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/31 "2004-11-14T00:23:13Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > Jimmy Smits’ appearance on Blue wasn’t as hokey as it might have been. God, I’d hate to see what it “might have been.” It was embarrassing to watch. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2004, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/32 "2004-11-14T02:08:45Z")
I too stopped watching after Dr. Greene died, but was pretty annoyed before that. All of those doctors are fucking each other, none of them ever date, hang out with, or talk to anyone who doesn’t work at the hospital, unless they are family members. If they are family members, they wind up in the ER somehow terrifically fucked up. And if a character ever DOES leave the ER is with someone else, that person cheats and/or divorces him (Benton), has a baby who dies (Dr. Carter), turns out to be a psycho (Kovacs) or some other horrible fate. But hey, even those relationships within the hospital tend to have an ignominious end. Overall, it’s just too hard to believe anything that happens on that show anymore, and it used to be great. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2004, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/33 "2004-11-14T02:14:00Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > And that little painting: it would have been much more poignant if the character had been a better artist; that painting was crap. I didn’t catch what was said about the painting. Did Liotta think it was a picture of his son? ---
**Author:** ![Alice\_The\_Goon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Alice\_The\_Goon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alice_The_Goon)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2004, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/34 "2004-11-14T05:28:46Z")
I, too, have skipped ER for a couple years, but watched the last one. Half-watched it, anyway. I had quit watching it because it was just BEYOND dramatic. If someone was in the ER for the smallest thing, they ended up coding. If you were there for a sinus infection, you’d die for sure. Silly. I do like Ray Liotta and may have enjoyed his acting in this one more, except for two glaring mistakes: He was supposedly an old drunk dying of end-stage liver disease. Yet the whites of his eyes, except for the red around the rims, were blindingly white. Not one hint, one speck, of yellow? Come on, they have colored contacts nowadays, you coulda easily tended that little detail. The other thing: His voice. Way too clear, fast, and intelligible. You’d think there’d be more scratchiness, hoarseness, maybe some cloudy-headedness showing through. More of a “hard life” kinda voice. I couldn’t buy it. He appeared to be an actor playing a role. I have to say that was prolly the last ER I’ll ever watch. Unless, of course, they bring Clooney back. Then I may even tape it. ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2004, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/35 "2004-11-14T05:38:53Z")
I actually still watch the show sometimes, but I turned it off right about the time Ray’s son said “nice knowing ya”. I switched it to “Whose Line is it Anyway?” and “What Not to Wear” instead. I don’t have TiVo, so I switch back and forth between two shows when commercials come on, I’ve got it down to a science. I HAD been watching ER and Whose Line, but after the “nice knowing ya” line, I just said to myself “you know what? naaaaah, this sucks” and I switched. And now that I think about it, **Biggirl** is right on the money. The show has become and has been for a while, all sad and hardly any good stuff. The only good parts are the ones with the chunky, big ole’ cute orderly guy (don’t know his name, you know, the sarcastic one?). Guess it’s not such a great loss that my new job will have me working on Thurs. night. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2004, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/36 "2004-11-14T07:55:24Z")
I stopped watching ER early on. I think Greene got mugged/beat up/whatever later in the season that I gave up on. But I’m a big Linda Cardellini fan (Freaks & Geeks) and an even bigger Maura Tierney fan (News Radio), so I started watching again last season. While it’s true the ER is schmaltzy soap opera drivel, those fine ladies are _hot_. I liked the Ray Liotta episode because of the hallucinations. I interpreted those scenes as a neer deth expeariunce (stay away, LeCat!!!) that is based solely on chemical reactions in the brain. As he’s dying, his mind creates the fantasy. When he dies, they shut off. Very satisfying, that. The sickest part of watching it, for me, was when he asked Sam to touch his face. I thought to myself, “Damn, I’d almost change places with his character, if I could ogle Maura Tierney and have Linda Cardellini stroke my face.” I mean, how bad can renal failure really be? ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2004, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/37 "2004-11-14T10:20:39Z")
I stopped watching the show e few years ago because it came to the point where it just didn’t fit my schedule anymore- I’m never in front of a T.V. on a Thursday night. That’s it, just a schedule conflict. I didn’t get angry at the show for anything I would Pit it over, although if I ever were, at any point, to Pit ER the Pitting would revolve around two words: Rachel Greene. Damn, I wanted to smack that spoiled snotty little bitch. A Query to folks currently watching: I started watching ER (I didn’t watch early in the series) when Maura Tierney joined the cast because I’m going to marry her someday (She confided in me that she will never ever marry **Ellis Dee** ever, no matter what). Is the series still a good showcase for her character? Are there still enough Abby-heavy episodes? ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2004, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/38 "2004-11-14T10:23:30Z")
> [@bienville](#): > > Rachel Greene. I just now realize that for years NBC was running two shows on the same night each with a character named Rachel Green(e). C’mon T.V. writers! Try to come up with a better stockpile of names! ---
**Author:** ![TeaElle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8491ac/32.png) [@TeaElle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TeaElle)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2004, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/39 "2004-11-14T18:19:08Z")
> [@bienville](#): > > Are there still enough Abby-heavy episodes? Are you kiddin’? It’s almost the Friggin Abby Show week in and week out. The show is suffering from one major issue over these past few seasons, and that’s what the storylines and the scheduling do the actors. Noah Wyle, Ming-Na, Laura Innes, Goran Visnjic and Sherry Stringfield all do modified schedules so that they can spend more time with their children. Paul McCrane, Eriq LaSalle and Anthony Edwards all burned out entirely. (Alex Kingston and Michael Michele were victims of the “your man is gone, no reason to keep you” concept which is just disgusting.) The only people who are currently there and hanging tough are the younger members of the cast who have no kids. (Tierney, Mehki Pfieiffer, Parminder Nagra, Cardellini, new obnoxious rocker doc.) Continuity of character arcs has disappeared. Last season we were getting into drama with Kerry Weaver getting set to kidnap her son, this season, the drama-laden, socially relevant storyline about the custody battle with her dead partner’s parents was just dropped like a hot potato. Early on, ER fans called stuch storylines “Bobbed” after the character Bob, a Polish immigrant who was working as a clerk but was really a surgeon who couldn’t take the boards because her English wasn’t good enough. When no doctors were around, she saved a man’s life. We never saw her thereafter. The concept is no longer worthy of a name, because it’s not so obvious that it can be called out anymore, it’s just the way things go. Only four of the main characters on this show have had a happy ending: Carol Hathaway, Doug Ross, Anna DelAmico and Jeanie Boulet. No one else has managed to walk away from the ER without having had deep, devastating psychic wounds imparted on them often based on their service as medical professionals. Yet only one has had a documented work-interrupting problem with drugs and alcohol because of work-related trauma? No one has beaten their spouse or kids? No one has committed suicide? (Oh, wait, that med student was killed by the El in season 2, but it was never determined if that was a suicide or an accident.) No one has given it all up and gone to live on an ashram? TNT has the “What is Drama?” things and one of the them mentioned something very important that John Wells needs to be reminded of: drama doesn’t have to mean tragedy. Happiness can be dramatic. Uneventful pregnancies and deliveries and babies who live and don’t get poisoned by their big half-sister’s ecstasy can be dramatic. Couples who get married and stay married and no one strays, gets sick or dies can be dramatic. The story of the mother who brings her child into the ER and leaves with a happy, successful result can be just as dramatic as the mother whose kids die because she thew them out a window while having some kind of hallucination. Always going for the worst ending, the tearjerker, the rip-your-heart-out horror of a family that’s been devastated in the most senseless way is just cheap and easy. And disgusting. ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401/40 "2004-11-15T03:20:26Z")
I finally watched the tape of Thursday’s show and cried most of the way through, because I realized this is probably how my ex-husband is going to die. Unless he does something soon to repair his relationship with his kids, and end his alcoholism, that may be the way he goes…terribly alone and in pain. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possessed-me-to-watch-er-last-night-after-2-seasons/274401.md?page=3)