Ten years ago I wrote a six part series to celebrate ER’s 20th Anniversary on my now defunct wordpress blog. Ten years later, I wrestle with the idea of wether or not to indulge in such acts or energy for the 30th Anniversary. After all, aren’t I a bit old for such fanaticism? But if there’s one thing I’m still trying to learn at my ripe age is to not let anyone steal thy joy. So if you’d like to spare yourself from my fandom, thank you for reading thus far and you can wait for the next substack to hit your inbox. But for now, this ER fan is going to go down a long and winding memory lane and heavy lift1 from the words she wrote 10 years ago.
Without further ado — Previously on ER…
Part One
Once upon a time, circa the early 90s, in a land known as Los Angeles, a certain agent for CAA stumbled across an old feature script written by the now timeless Michael Crichton. After all, Jurassic Park just became a hit in the movie theaters at this time and Spielberg was riding a wave of blockbusters. This script, then titled EW (Emergency Ward), looked promising to packaging agent Tony Krantz.
The first thing Krantz did was reach out to Crichton’s agent. “He told me the script was treading water in development with Amblin at Warner Bros. on the feature side. It was a project that Michael and Steven Spielberg were going to turn their attention to next after their monumental success together on Jurassic Park,” wrote Krantz in his essay “The Birth of ‘ER'” for the Hollywood Journal.2
However, Warner Bros. wasn’t biting and so Krantz tried to sell it as a series instead. Crichton wasn’t entirely convinced and was only slightly open to a 13-episode deal. Through great powers of persuasion, Krantz was able to lock down that deal but they still needed a showrunner that everyone could trust. Enter: John Wells, who Crichton at first wasn’t exactly thrilled about.3
“There was one gigantic problem however — I didn’t have deals negotiated with anybody. And there was a bigger problem: Michael Crichton was insisting on parity with Steven Spielberg deal-wise, with that caveat that he would get paid for doing no work — the studio contract had to spell it out precisely or forget it,” wrote Krantz.
Krantz opted to package “ER” – a fictional account of Crichton’s years as a medical student – as a television series. The only problem was, who would buy it? CBS had “Chicago Hope” already in the works and poised as their slam dunk of the new 1994 – 1995 season and Fox was barely a network. ABC showed initial excited interest but as Krantz wrote, “[ABC] didn’t want to step up in a meaningful way.” That left NBC and they weren’t enthused about the project.
“We didn’t see how we could go wrong with a two-hour movie,” said David Nevins, then VP of primetime series for NBC. “Nobody bit on their ask for thirteen episodes, and Warren [ creative development ] stayed after them. Maybe two months went by, and Warren kept calling.”
“The ask had gone down to six episodes.” Warren Littlefield4 added to Nevins’ testimony in Littlefield’s memoir Top of the Rock. “Crichton decided to rewrite the script on two conditions. No network notes and Crichton would take one pass to update the medicine,” said Nevins.
In short, it was a mess, but a beautiful one at that. Despite the network suits’ hesitations, ER moved forward. Appropriately, Anthony Edwards as Dr. Greene was cast first and then George Clooney with a trail of failed pilots behind him. Juliana Marguiles was only twenty-six when she auditioned for her now iconic role as Nurse Carol Hathaway. Sherry Stringfield, who would play Dr. Lewis left NYPD Blue for ER. Noah Wyle, who had read the feature script EW hopped on board to play med student John Carter, which left the role of Dr. Benton unfilled —
“So I get to the end of the script and I’m like, ‘Ah, that’s a really good script.’,” said Eriq La Salle who would play Dr. Benton. “So I called my agent and I said, ‘I’m sorry, which role is the Black role?’ And he said, ‘The Benton role.’ And I was like. ‘Get outta here!’ I thought Michael Crichton and John Wells did something interesting. I don’t think Benton was ever described as an African-American, and I tried not to think the role was too good for an African-American to play.”
With all the principle actors cast and production underway, Warren Littlefield still needed to convince the NBC execs and primetime audiences that ER was worth the effort. Vulture writer Josef Adalian asked Littlefield why they chose to run the ER premiere on a Monday night against a “Monday Night Football” game – Detroit Lions vs. Dallas Cowboys.
“I had seen the ER pilot probably 26 times. And that night, I’m going back and forth between ER and the NFL. And I’m like, ‘We’re screwed. We’re dead. This is – this is Dallas, America’s Team. It’a nail biting game,'” said Littlefield. That night, ER scored a 17.6 Nielsen rating while the NFL did 19 and Chicago Hope did 16.5
The next week ER moved to Thursday night after the Friends premiere and against Chicago Hope. All held their breath. No one thought ER could beat CBS’ Chicago Hope. Week after week, the execs and creatives read the numbers, and week after week, Chicago Hope was on the steady decline as ER shot up in popularity.
Josef Beckman, scheduling at NBC, told Adalian, “…all the years I’d been in the business, if there was ever a slam dunk … God could have done a talk show [opposite ER]. It didn’t matter. I remember showing Chicago Hope and ER to my wife. She didn’t know which network they were on. Afterwards, I said, ‘Well, which one would you watch?’ And she didn’t even say. She looked at me and she said, ‘Are you even kidding me?’ One show was these young, idealistic doctors in a struggling inner-city hospital, with multiple stories going on in that pilot. Then the other was this pristine, squeaky-clean hospital with these high-paid doctors separating conjoined twins. Come on. What are people gonna watch?”
Littlefield adds to Adalian, “Friends was a destination. Regardless of what was happening at 8:30, Seinfeld was a destination. The same for ER. And so, through the height of the Must-See years, 75 million Americans were watching at least some of Thursday night on NBC. If you didn’t, you absolutely felt left out. You just didn’t want to show up at work the next day if you couldn’t talk about what was on NBC the night before. It was the place to be in the television universe. And it just was the last time that one network had the best of the best, and everybody wanted to be there.”
Thirty years later I can’t help but think of all the one-hour medical dramas that came after doing their best to capture ER’s shine. Shonda Rhimes herself is a self professed ER fan, having watched diligently from her dorm at Dartmouth. With The Pitt airing on Max next year alongside Pulse on Netflix in 2025, I’d like to think no matter how hard we try, nothing will compare…
Part Two
Just in case you’re not wanting to watch all 331 episodes (Hulu, Max) plus the hour long retrospective (Max), here’s a Mia breakdown of the ‘must see’ episodes —
Season One - 24 Hours the two hour pilot, setting the tone for the entire series. Blizzard, a non stop roller coaster of winter storm chaos. Love’s Labor Lost, heart wrenching, Emmy awarding episode guest starring Bradley Whitford. Motherhood Tarantino directed this one and um you can tell.
Season Two - Hell and High Water Clooney’s Ross attempts to save the day outside the ER when a kid gets trapped in a flooded culvert, Baby Shower, laboring patients flood the ER when OB is shut down due to sprinkler system errors. Lowkey hilarious.
Season Three - The Long Way Around Ewan McGregor guest stars in this epic bottle episode taking place in a convenience store opposite Juliana Marguiles.
Season Four - Ambush the ambitious, Emmy nominated live episode, which aired twice: once on the east coast and then cast and crew reset to play out live on the west coast hours later. To hold themselves accountable, you can see a live baseball game play out in the lounge, proving to the audience, who could switch between channels, that this was in fact live. Fathers and Sons aka the bromance episode, Doug and Mark hit the road to bury Ross’ father.
Season Five - Day for Knight a series reset in my opinion ushering in the next wave of characters including Kelly Martin’s Lucy Knight, she now the bright eyed student that Wyle’s John Carter once was. The Storm Part 1, George Clooney sets up his exit as his character, Dr. Ross, continues to blur the lines of medical ethics and patient care. The Storm Part 2, Shit goes down as Clooney makes his dramatic exit opposite a tear filled Marguiles’ Hathaway. Double Blind, mere resident Maggie Doyle (Jorja Fox) gets caught in the tangled web of hospital politics and makes her fiery bow.
Season Six - Great Expectations, one of my favorite episodes of all time that I watch every Thanksgiving - Corday’s comebacks are fire even if the battle of wits is against her future stepdaughter and Maura Tierney makes her debut as Abby Lockhart. Be Still My Heart and All In The Family, a harrowing two part event series watched by 30 million viewers that still impacts the players involved to this day. Yes I watch every Valentine’s Day and you can find Natalie Abrams’ oral history here. RIP Lucy.6 Juliana Marguiles makes her series exit in Such Sweet Sorrow.
Season Seven - let the moody extra soapy years begin with A Walk in the Woods. James Cromwell enters as “The Bishop” for his three episode arc allowing viewers into Goran Visnjic’s darkly complicated and sexy as hell Luka Kovac interiority in relationship to his past with the alluded to but never vocalized Yugoslav Wars7. Witch Hunt, Laura Innes’ Dr. Weaver publicly comes out as gay in an epic tirade against perpetual antagonist we love to hate Dr. Romano (Paul McCrane). Rampage, held my breath then and can’t bring myself to watch this timely episode now given the rampant gun violence in America. That ending tho. Will never forget that image of Dr. Greene defibrillating dead air over the coding shooter.
Season Eight - Secrets and Lies, my preteen self will never tire of this angst filled bottle, Breakfast Club inspired, Waiting for Godot-esque episode where offending parties are snowed in during a sexual harassment seminar. The writers had too much fun with that one. I’ll Be Home For Christmas, marks Eriq LaSalle’s exit from the series as Dr. Peter Benton. Benton may be nonchalant about quitting County General but I cry every time I watch his farewell. Then said writers hit us with a one-two punch with Dr. Greene’s death in The Letter and Emmy nominated On The Beach.
Season Nine - A Hopeless Wound, Don Cheadle guest stars as a Parkinson’s diagnosed medical student. Hindsight, ER takes on Memento’s structure with Leslie Bibb guest starring.
Season Ten - Friends ends its decade long run while ER continues on with such set pieces as NICU, where we follow med student turned nurse turned reinstated med student Abby Lockhart (Maura Tierney) during her stressful as hell NICU rotation alongside Bend It Like Beckham’s Parminder Nagra. The Student, Dr. Carter having failed with Lucy takes on the challenge of mentoring Nagra’s Dr. Rasgotra in this emotional rollercoaster of an episode between student and teacher.
Season 11 - Grey’s premieres toward the end of ER’s 11th season (March 2005) but the OG juggernaut doesn’t hold back with an event episode aptly named The Show Must Go On with Shane West’s Dr. Ray finally rising to the occasion as Wyle’s Dr. Carter celebrates his last day in the ER trenches.
Season 12 - I graduate high school and I’m emotionally unwell after watching both Human Shield (the return of Abby and Luka thank god) and 21 Guns, highly reminiscent of the deeply disturbing “Rampage” episode. Dr. Gallant makes his exit as a causality of the War in Iraq. I cannot unsee his humvee hitting an IED.
Seasons 13 - 15, what can I say. Even the best shows need to know when to take their bows. And in the midst of the 2007/08 Writers Strike, ER finally does. NBC aired a one hour Retrospective before the finale episode on April 2, 2009 and I’ll always get chills from the series finale ending line, “Are you coming Dr. Greene?” in which Dr. Greene’s daughter Rachel returns as a prospective med student, Carter calling after her as an ambulance rolls into the bay, the DP giving us an epic slow pull out wide shot of ER’s County General.
Part Three
You’re still here? Perhaps it’s time for a water break. Skimming my ten year old 20th Anniversary blog posts, I go on to rant about the lack of love surrounding the anniversary in comparison to how Friends is celebrated despite them premiering on the same night. Who knows how things will lead up this year, especially given the passing of Matthew Perry, but I’ll forgo those sentiments for now. Instead we can all enjoy the not-crossover that happened during Friends’ season one episode “The One With Two Parts Part Two” in which George Clooney and Noah Wyle guest star as ER doctors (but not as Ross and Carter respectively) as Rachel and Monica try to game the healthcare system.
While celebrations of Friends past included fun Central Perk popups, perhaps we can celebrate ER’s birthday with some free healthcare in the form of health mobiles placed throughout the city.
Part Four
That time I went to mecca…
When ER announced it would be ending in 2009, I worked extra shifts at The Gap to save up money to buy plane tickets to Los Angeles in hopes of visiting the iconic set. With my bestie in tow (hi Katie), we descended upon Burbank during our winter break with our fingers crossed in hopes that we’d in fact catch a glimpse of some tv magic.
Long story short, because believe me there is a longer version to this miraculous tale, Katie and I ended up on the Warner Bros. backlot on the five-hour tour by ourselves. When the tour guide asked us if there was anything in particular we wanted to see given that we were the only guests, Katie and I both looked at each other then beamed, “ER!” As luck would have it, they were filming exteriors that day so the tour guide had us lock our bags and cameras in the golf cart seats and we pulled up on a corner between Doc MaGoo’s the Jumbo Mart and the iconic ambulance bay.
We were able to spend the afternoon watching the cast fake shiver as false snow waltzed to the ground, pumped through rigged exterior vents beneath a sprawling, bright and sunny, California sky. Despite my disappointment in seeing how the sausage was made (and the fact that ER used to fly to Chicago a few times a year to pick up those sweeping and cinematic Chicago exteriors), I was giddy with excitement at being so close to the action. And because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut between takes, Scott Grimes’ Dr. Archie Morris marched up to Katie and me to take a photo with us, he plucking out his cell phone hiding in his scrub pocket. Adding to us distracting Grimes between setups, Justina Machado8 herself also chatted with us for a spell (still upset I didn’t ask for a photo), and when I spotted a featured background nurse, learning later her name is Stephanie, and called out to her as the ever present ‘nurse with no speaking lines’, she was so impressed by my recall that Stephanie got us permission to step inside the hallowed soundstage. She was a background nurse for all 15 seasons.
We were told the stage was set for an upcoming long, tracking shot (aka a runner)9 and to not bump or touch anything but Stephanie graciously guided us through the winding, continuous set, and we even caught a glimpse of the stairs everyone always seemed to be running up and down.
In a word, the experience was surreal and I’m so glad I had the gumption and courage to fly out and experience a little bit of ER magic before the stage lights shut off for the last time.
Part Five
Throwback to that one time my housemates surprised me by dressing up in scrubs as I watched the ER finale in my college dorm’s rec room. Will never forget that act of kindness because I know I was being so annoying about the series ending and not knowing what I’d do on Thursday nights for the rest of my life.
And if you’re still reading this substack post, thank you for coming on this mini retrospective journey with me! There’s so much more I can write about this legendary show, especially now that I’ve been in the biz going on nine years now, but I’ll end it here.
ER is my ‘core wound’ as we like to say in writers rooms - the one constant I had for fifteen years that got me through all the curveballs life had to offer.
Cheers to 30 years…
And to quote William H. Macy’s Dr. Morgenstern who instructed Dr. Greene, who passed the advice onto Dr. Carter, who wasted the line on Dr. Morris, “You set the tone.”
I remember in journalism school being floored when I found out that borrowing one’s words from one’s own past publications was considered plagiarism. So I’m plagiarizing myself today and it feels great.
Would link the article but it’s now a broken hyperlink. But believe me, I did my due diligence with linking to sources back in 2014.
Foreshadowing much to today’s failed ER reboot v. The Pitt debacle?! Whoa.
President of NBC Entertainment, 1991-1998.
An explainer how to interpret Nielsen numbers - but basically ER did the damn thing.
Made my then roommate watch this during the height of the pandemic and she has yet to forgive me for having her watch those two hours of television. Glad to know shit’s still impactful after all these years.
Fun fact, my grade in school always aligned with the present season of ER so now, in seventh grade, I’m starting to get history lessons not taught in school through primetime television.
Although there is no acknowledgement of this fact, I like to think that Justina Machado’s season four character during the live episode is the same character that shows up in the series’ final season opposite Scott Grimes.
Rod Holcomb established the frenetic intensity of ER as the director of the pilot and series finale. He also came to talk to KU’s film program where I sat in the front row and very much was not enrolled in said film program (rock chalk).