ER HEADQUARTERS.COM // ER in the News
 

It's the end of an ERa.

Noah Wyle, the only ER lead to stay with the hit NBC drama for its 11-year run, will depart as a cast regular in May and return for four episodes in each of the next two seasons.

Wyle's character, Dr. John Carter, will say his goodbye to colleagues at Chicago's County General Hospital in the season finale May 19. One week earlier, Carter will reunite with his true love, Kem (Thandie Newton), in Paris, producers say. ER (tonight, 9:59 ET/PT) will shoot in the French capital in early April.

Executive producer John Wells says he'll feel the loss personally as well as professionally; he and Wyle, 33, are among just a few people still with the show who worked on the 1994 pilot. Sherry Stringfield, another original, returned as Dr. Susan Lewis in 2001 after a five-year absence.

"It's very sad for me. Noah and I have a lot of history together," Wells says. "He's a wonderful actor and a wonderful man, and it's been great to watch him grow up and get married and have a family."

Wyle, who has received five Emmy nominations for his portrayal of Carter, said last fall that he planned to leave ER when his contract expired at the end of this TV season. But he left the door ajar on whether he would return in some capacity.

Wells says it came down to the actor being interested in other career opportunities and the writers having difficulty finding new story ideas for Carter on a series so focused on character relationships.

ER, which has been renewed through 2007-08, is no longer the ratings juggernaut of Wyle's earlier years, but it remains NBC's most-watched scripted series and performs strongly with advertiser-coveted young adults. CBS' Without a Trace now beats ER in viewers (18.9 million viewers to 16.1 million for the 2004-05 season), but ER leads among ages 18 to 49 (9.8 million to just under 8 million).

Wyle's Carter will be leaving to work with a Doctors Without Borders-type organization, Wells says. In an earlier plotline, Carter and Dr. Luka Kovac (Goran Visnjic) provided medical services in Africa, which is where Carter met Kem, a health administrator who works with AIDS patients. Kem left for Africa early this season, after the couple had a baby boy who died.

Wyle, part of an original cast that included George Clooney, Anthony Edwards and Eriq La Salle, took a six-episode break in fall 2003 to spend time with his wife, Tracy, and baby, Owen.

In December, Wyle starred in an action-adventure film, TNT's The Librarian: Quest for the Spear, which received good reviews and attracted a robust 7 million viewers. It was ad-supported cable's highest-rated movie in households for 2004; a sequel is in development.

Tom Weeks of media buyer Starcom Entertainment says Wyle developed Carter into a strong lead character over the years, but his departure shouldn't significantly harm the ensemble show. "No one wants to see him go, but I think the hospital is what people tune in to watch."

USA Today