What I’ll Miss About ER

theTVaddict

15 years ago

Although I have not been a regular watcher of ER for quite some time now (or to be more specific, since the moment a helicopter landed on Dr. Romano), I have found myself spending a inordinate amount of time today reminiscing about NBC’s game-changer of a medical drama.

But rather than wax poetically about my favorite couples, best (Love’s Labor Lost) and worst (Africa story-lines, snooze) moments, and the ways in which ER changed television forever, I thought I would take this opportunity to share the the one reason ER was the very definition of “Must See TV” for me.

Whether it was Lucy getting brutally stabbed by a then relatively unknown David Krumholz, Dr. Greene having to tell an expectant father (pre-THE WEST WING’s Bradley Whitford!) that his wife had just died unexpectedly the operating table, or my all-time favorite ER moment that had an angry Dr. Benton demanding that Dr. Grant (HOUSE’s Omar Epps) be paged to the “ER” only to realize that the patient they were in fact operating on was none other than Dr. Grant himself, who may-or-may-note-have succumbed to the pressure of working at the hospital by throwing himself in front of a train — nobody did jaw dropping surprises like ER. Surprises that thrilled, chilled and worst of all — in this spoiler obsessed culture we live in — have all but disappeared from the television landscape.