Why has ER been the #1 rated show in America for the last few years? I can’t figure out. Can you fans explain, why do you sit and watch the blood and guts of an ER drama and consider it entertainment? I tried watching the show a couple times and can only last 5 minutes before I switch to something better. Don’t people prefer watching sitcoms, sports, or music videos, or even documentaries, for relaxing entertainment at night?
I used to be a big fan until they lost clooney, now I dont see it every week…its on at eleven and that is a bit late for me on a weeknight.
Its the ensemble cast, the way the characters play off each other…you feel like you are watching people you know, and I like some sitcoms too…but the good ensemble cast will get me every time. ( I hated the Cosby show for example- cast SUCKED!!)
I liked Cheers, but I am not wild about Veronica’s Closet with Kirstie Allen, and I dont watch Becker with Ted Danson.Ensemble cast, definately makes or breaks the show.
Just my opinion.
I’m glad someone agrees with me on this. I thought I was the only person in America who couldn’t bear ER. What really sucks is the reruns now on TNT. Everyone I work with wants to watch it at the office, and it comes on just as things are slowing down in the evening. I haven’t seen an episode since George Clooney left, but his absence could have done nothing but improve the show.
:::standing up:::
My name is Cristi, and I’ve never watched ER.
I can’t say the show sucks, because I’ve never seen it. The premise just never appealed to me, I guess.
I’ve watched the show on and off. On the whole I liked it, for these reasons:
It had a lot of attractive women on it, who were usually strong, intelligent characters. Even that airhead one had a serious side.
The cast seemed like a real hospital staff. It wasn’t a whole staff full of fashion models or stereotypes or whatever.
There were some very intense episodes, which dealt with real stuff. I have no desire to see actual domestic violence or heroin addiction in my life, but it is interesting to have actual social issues on television.
It was often quite experimental. I liked some of the weird camera work.
George Clooney, love him or hate him. I love him.
Things I didn’t like so much:
The perpetual crisis gets kind of old. Toxic waste, grenade launchers, methadone babies, euthanasia, etc. Can’t anything go right? Yeah, I know it’s an emergency room, but it still seems a little over the top sometimes.
The perpetual moral dilemmas get kind of old. Do you give the methadone baby back to its smack-fiend mother? Maybe the answer to a similar question, do you give the battered child back to its abusive mother, would help. Should doctors be aggressive and risk “playing God”, or should they be cautious and risk losing patients? I’m sure these questions occur from time to time in medicine, but I can’t believe that half the medical staff is losing sleep over a day-old life-and-death decision at every moment.
I love ER. Can’t wait for the Season Premiere. Aside from Ally McBeal, it’s one of the few shows I am sure not to miss.
What makes it great? The writing, of course.
Which leads me to a question we asked at our last GNO (Girls Night Out): Benton, Carter, Green, or Ross?
I’d go for Dr. Green.
You’re mental! Dr. Ross can examine me anytime!!
What do you think of THIRDWATCH?
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- I think it has an appeal to people who are bored but timid, and reluctant to do anything but watch TV - it has tension that the viewer can directly relate to, but the show isn’t real so there’s no need to be concerned about the outcome afterwards. - Of course, for those of us with cable there are real ER shows on, but watching a real kid die from really being run over by a real cement truck isn’t quite what most of us would call entertainment. It relates a feeling of helplessness- patients who died because help didn’t arrive fast enough, doctors who didn’t have time to try everything, relatives who came looking for a loved one and found a corpse. real ERs are scary places, where less-than-happy endings occur daily, and most “ER” viewers want the excitement without the reality. (-see also “professional wrestling”-) - MC
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Hey, maybe MC can videotape his surgery to broadcast on one of those “real” shows! Wouldn’t it be fascinating to watch the surgeons remove that big stick MC has imbedded up his ass…?
MC, stuff like that happens on the show, too. One of the last episodes from last season involved a fiery prom car crash, and let me just say that it was one of the most gut-wrenching things I’ve ever seen on TV that wasn’t real.
As for the choice…can I pick more than one? I’m stuck between Carter and Green.
Thanks for the responses. Sounds like a lot women watch ER mainly to see the handsome doctor/actors in action, like a soap opera (General Hospital). I wonder what ER’s viewer demographics are like? 75% single young women?
Maybe men like me would watch ER more if the nurses were better looking.
I can’t stand it, myself – an hour of heart attacks and sucking chest wounds interspersed with melodrama and commercials. Just what I need to relax with in the evening.
You know, my husband can’t stand ER either. However, put a Shania Twain video on and suddenly he’s riveted to the screen… 
Well, as an ER/ICU nurse, I like to watch it and spot the plot flaws. I also envy them, I wish we could move pts through the ER as quickly as they seem to be able to,
Larry
Love it. Great acting, involving stories and continuing plots, suspense. It’s a fabulously acted soap opera.
And tonight’s premiere pissed me off wonderfully. Romano and Weaver running the show? ARGH!!!
Love that Luka…
Gee MC, maybe the surgeons in ER can remove that stick up your ass. Personally I don’t watch it much but if I stop by the livingroom and watch it, I will watch it all the way through. I like the actors, and how it’s not about one character but a whole ensemble. The actors do seem like real people (they aren’t all model looking). Oh and there’s also a bit of comedy (more than Chicago Hope, which I never really liked).
I like the plots they give and I like the writing. Blood and guts does not phase me (hell I participated in a necropsy after all). My family is into the medical/police professions so I think that has something to do with the shows appeal. Without the moral dilemmas and accidents what are they going to focus the show on? Stitching cuts and bruises?
Stoid, HELL YES! How I wanted to smack Weaver upside her head for turning tail and stabbing Greene and the rest of the staff in the back for her personal gains! Hopefully karma will smack her for me :). Then again, they give the show that ‘villain’ it needs for entertainment.
You make me want to throw my pager out the window
tell MCI to cut the phone poles
break my lease so I can move
cause you’re a bugaboo, a bugaboo
George Clooney is cute, but my money is on Noah Wyle (Dr. Carter). Too bad he’s married 
BTW, I missed last night’s episode because I had to work
Doesn’t anybody else wish that somebody would shoot that bastard Romano? I’m waiting for the day that Weaver goes ballistic and beats his head in with her crutches.
Shadowfox
Too bad you missed last night’s. It won’t be Weaver…of that you may be assured.
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- I just don’t see the attraction of watching a fake crisis. I can understand being bored, but turning to “fake excitement” seems addle-minded to me. - And maybe you should take a look at your husband’s ass. . . we thank you in advance for not posting images. (Any images of Shania Twain’s ass should be forwarded to me for further study) - MC
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I love ER, and so does my husband. What do you mean, no good-looking nurses? Carol is drop-dead gorgeous!
And to respond to PunditLisa’s question–
Carter is a darling boy, but so immature. I’d take Greene.