ER: One of TVs greats (ER)

Member Name: eilidhcatriona

Product:	ER
Date:	18/05/09 (6 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: An all round fantastic show

Disadvantages: It's ending very very soon!

ER, what can I say...well, Thursday nights have become nights of mourning for me, as with every new episode of ER, we are one closer to it being over for good.

Over the last several months, I've been collecting ER on DVD, I'm now on series 12. I've been watching it on TV right since the very first episode in 1994, and have never missed one. Watching it all again has been great, especially seeing old faces again.

In the early days we had Mark Greene (Anthony Edwards), Doug Ross (George Clooney), Carol Hathaway (Julianna Margulies), Peter Benton (Eriq La Salle) and John Carter (Noah Wyle), among a stellar cast of supporting actors - but these were the big guys, for me at any rate. Time went on, characters left (Clooney being the most famous) and characters died, but ER kept going. You hear so much about people saying the early years were the best, but having watched it all back to back I don't think so. I think it just changed, moved on, it didn't get worse.

A big deal is always made about Clooney leaving, but while he was excellent and his character was brilliant, he was just one part of a big whole. And having recently seen on TV the episode where he returned, I wasn't that impressed - and I realised that the Carter-Benton story meant more to me, it was more about the characters that we loved than about showing a famous face. And with that, I realised that for all the fuss about Clooney/Doug Ross, he isn't the main character - Carter (Noah Wyle) is. He was in it for 11 years, with a return in the 12th and 15th series, we grew up with him.

Then of course in series 5 we had Luka (Goran Visnjic) and Abby (Maura Tierney) joining, who became the latter day Doug and Carol. Their storyline kept us going right through to the start of the current series. We saw Pratt evolve from a cocky young resident to a would be Chief before tragedy struck, Morris has become the heart of the department after being a complete waste of space as a resident! Then there are all the others, too many to go through here.

So what can I say about the show itself...the storylines are always action packed, touching, humourous. Several times the show has reduced me to tears, the most notable being Mark's death and Pratt's death. But at the moment I'm welling up every week because it's almost over...

The show has changed and evolved. I'll be honest and say series 14 for me wasn't great. I wasn't surprised to hear 15 would be the last (although I was upset). But 15 has been good again, despite the introduction of new characters that I don't feel we have the time to get to know. I've loved seeing the old faces back, even Mark in a flashback, and I love Haleh's wall of names - I had to pause that and read them all, and get all nostalgic!

If you've never watched ER, you've missed out. The DVDs start from £9.98 per series on Amazon, although they get a little pricier with the last few - I paid £14.98 for series 12, and I think 13 is a bit more than that.

Summary: My favourite show of all time