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ER News Archive
ER'S PARMINDER NAGRA WILL STAR IN 'FALLEN HERO'
By:
Jessica Barnes
Published:
May 25, 2007
So maybe all
that talk of ER outliving its appeal has spurred one its
stars to head back to the big screen. Variety reported
out of Cannes that Parminder Nagra, who plays Dr. Neela
Rasgotra on NBC's ER, has signed on to star in the film
Fallen Heroes. The film also stars Naveen Andrews and is
the story of a battle scarred soldier (Andrews) who
returns to his village to try and resume a normal life –
and it seems like Andrews has had plenty of experience
playing that kind of role since he has been playing a
guilt ridden Iraqi soldier on LOST for the last three
seasons. There is no word on what role Nagra is set to
play, but I can only assume it would be "the girl" in
the film. Nagra, who only has a few feature film credits
in her extensive resume, was last seen in the U.K.
fantasy film In Your Dreams, but is still probably best
remembered as "that girl from Bend it Like Beckham."
Fallen Heroes will be directed by Partho Sengupta, whose
2006 documentary The Way of Beauty will be screening
this summer at the Durban International Film Festival.
The film is set to start production this summer with a
relatively small budget of $50 million. Since both stars
currently earn their bread and butter on the small
screen, it would appear that they are planning on making
the most out of their hiatus.
Cinematical.com

ER DUO CONFIRM THEIR EXIT
By:
Ileane Rudolph
Published:
April 16, 2007
The big
screen is beckoning ER’s
most senior medicos. Goran
Visnjic and Maura Tierney (aka
deliciously moody lovebirds Luka
and Abby) confirmed for TV Guide
that they’re on their way off
the show. (Word of Visnjic's
exit was broken in late February
by Ausiello.) “I’m pretty sure
I’m leaving after next year,”
says Tierney, while Visnjic says
he expects to do “a couple” —
fewer than five — episodes next
season. As TV Guide’s Sexiest
Doc and Dad says, “We’re still
talking about how and when we’re
going to do it. But it’s kind of
a logical progression because
every summer I want to do a
movie and... there are always
problems with my scheduling. I
think it’s a nice run to be on a
show for eight years.”
Similarly, Tierney says she
loves ER and her costars,
but would like to do more
features. (Currently she’s
filming Semi-Pro with
Will Ferrell and Woody
Harrelson.) Although Tierney has
asked the producers to whack
Abby when the day comes, both
actors believe the writers
prefer a happy ending for the
tempest-tossed pair. Gee, and we
were hoping for another killer
helicopter.
TV
Guide.com

LAURA INNES TALKS ABOUT
LEAVING ER
By:
Joel Keller
Published:
January 11, 2007
For those of
you who watched last week's ER
and thought, "Whoa! Weaver got
fired?!", you're not alone. But
if you also thought that there
might be an opening for Laura
Innes' character to stick
around, you'd be wrong. Innes
tells TVGuide.com that she's
definitely leaving the show
after tonight's episode; she may
come back for an episode or two
next year, but that's about it.
Basically, after playing Kerry
Weaver for over eleven years,
she just felt it was time to go.
That's kind of a surprise to me,
because for the first time in a
few years, the Weaver character
was actually going in a good
direction, with a new hip, a new
girlfriend, and that TV job.
And, because she was just a
plain attending and not
management, her power-hungry
side was gone. But that was part
of the plan to have her leave,
according to Innes, as well as
making it a mid-season surprise.
She's going to do more directing
-- she's directed episodes of
House and Studio 60 this year in
addition to ER -- and may act if
the right thing comes along. In
the interview, she also
discusses being a role model for
disabled people, being one of
the first main lesbian
characters on TV, and who she
still hangs out with from
amongst the massive set of ER
alumni. What she doesn't talk
about was playing Bunny,
Lowell's girlfriend on Wings.
But you can't cover everything,
I guess.
She hints that other cast
members will leave at the end of
the year. There are rumors that
Goran Visnjic might go, but I
haven't heard about anyone else.
Any ideas out there? Let me know
in the comments.
TV
Squad

GOING 'GREY' HEALS 'ER'
By:
Verne Gay
Published:
November 09, 2006
This is a
story that may finally prove –
per screenwriter William
Goldman’s indelible line – that
nobody knows anything in
Hollywood.
Or it may, in
fact, prove that everybody knows
something – they’re just not
always sure they know what they
know until they know it.
What this
definitely establishes is that
television – often a fool’s
paradise of predictions,
guesswork, spin, hype and
outright balderdash – very much
remains a place of surprise and
even mystery.
This is a
story, in other words, about
“Grey’s Anatomy” and “ER,” which
both air on Thursday nights, the
former at 9 on ABC, the latter
at 10 on NBC.
One is the
great ascendant hit of the year,
the TV monster of the moment.
The other is an old warhorse.
Presumed to be tired and
listless, this old nag was
supposed to be much closer to
the grave than the cradle.
“Grey’s” has
been seen by an average of 24
million viewers this season, and
is far and away TV’s dominant
scripted show. Before this, ABC
hadn’t had a No. 1 hit on
Thursday night in nearly 30
years, when “Laverne & Shirley”
briefly nested there during the
1979 season.
And the old
warhorse? “ER” was TV’s big
kahuna in the 1995, ’96 and ’98
seasons and has been a top-10
stalwart for almost each of the
past 13 seasons. In terms of
pure commercial potency, this
has been one of the stellar hits
in network history – and
remained so until senescence
struck. With all original cast
members gone, ratings way down
in 2005 and a prevailing sense
(even at NBC) that the show’s
creative arteries were
irreversibly sclerotic, this was
expected to be the last or
next-to-last season.
Now, take
another look: So far this
season, “ER” is NBC’s
most-viewed scripted series
(averaging around 15 million
viewers) and virtually tied with
the network’s hot Monday
newcomer “Heroes” among younger
viewers (both get around 6.5
percent of adults between the
ages of 18 and 49 in their
respective time periods).
“ER,” once
again, is winning the 10 p.m.
time period and is even acting
like a young whippersnapper in
the process. Sclerosis be
damned.
Besides the
fact that, until now, aging hits
almost never – make that never –
reversed steep downward spirals,
why is this so unusual?
There are a
couple of reasons. First,
counterintuitive though this may
seem, “ER” is actually the
better of the two Thursday
hospital shows. Gone are last
season’s histrionics (and
violent nuttiness). With volume
turned down, the show has gotten
back to doing what it always did
best – telling the stories of
average people in extreme peril.
The recent “Ames v. Kovac”
episode with guest star Forest
Whitaker was superb and went
someplace (the courtroom) where
“ER” has rarely ventured.
And while the
drama seems richer and sturdier
than in recent seasons, the show
also has shrewdly added its own
stubble-faced counterpart to
“Grey’s” Dr. McDreamy, played by
Patrick Dempsey – John Stamos as
Dr. Tony Gates. Stamos is nearly
the same vintage (43) as Dempsey
(40), and both were late-’80s
teen icons.
The other
likely reason for “ER’s”
recovery is equally
counterintuitive (until you
actually stop to think about
it). “Grey’s Anatomy” is
probably the key reason that
“ER” is back on top. Of the
resurgence, “ER’s” current
show-runner and executive
producer, David Zabel, says
bluntly: “No, I didn’t
anticipate this. I was afraid
that what the audience would
feel is that if they saw one
(hospital) show at 9, then they
might not want to see another
one at 10. I’m happy to say I
was wrong.”
He was wrong,
but wrong for an understandable
reason. What’s happening is one
of the older (and odder) phenoms
in television. It’s called
“drafting” an audience from one
show to another. In plain
English, this means that if a
program (“Grey’s Anatomy”) on
one network is a huge hit, then
another that follows on a
competing network literally gets
viewers in its “draft.”
The irony is
that “ER” appears to be as much
a beneficiary as the ABC show
that should be getting the
direct assist, “Six Degrees,”
which follows “Grey’s” at 10.
Networks
don’t particularly like the
draft effect for that reason,
but because the TV audience is a
rather fickle and uncontrollable
beast, they can’t entirely
eliminate it.
Over the
years, the networks got smart.
Most of the heavy-hitter hour
dramas were slotted at 10.
Sitcoms became less prone to
draft because they were designed
as lead-outs or lead-ins to
their companion shows. The
advent of the 500-channel
universe made drafting even more
infrequent – or at least
irrelevant.
Jeff Bader,
executive vice president of ABC
Entertainment and the network’s
boss in charge of prime-time
planning and scheduling, says,
“I do think it’s drafting a
little bit of ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’
but you see that in a lot of
time periods. If you have a huge
show on one network and a
popular one on another, you will
see people draft over to it.”
Not that
Bader has anything to worry
about. He was the architect of
the decade’s most successful
scheduling change so far.
So why put
“Grey’s” on Thursday in the
first place? To follow the
money. Commercials can be sold
at a premium because of the
looming weekend shopping days
and because there are so many
more available viewers.
Nevertheless,
there is studied pretentiousness
to “Grey’s” these nights. This
feels like a show that is
Important, or – more to the
point – knows that it’s
Important. There was a casual
serendipity to “Grey’s” last
season. By contrast, “ER” now
feels more grounded and,
surprisingly, often more
intelligent.
Credit for
the recharged “ER” goes to Zabel,
who has been with “ER” for five
seasons. He secured Stamos for a
couple of episodes last season,
then signed him full time for
this one. Says Zabel of Stamos’
character, new intern Tony
Gates, “he has a great sense of
humor and spark and energy that
I felt this show needed.”
Along with
“ER” stalwarts Goran Visnjic (Luka
Kovac), Maura Tierney (Abby
Lockhart) and Mekhi Phifer
(Gregory Pratt), the show has
added new faces, notably veteran
actor J.P. Manoux as obnoxious
motormouth Dr. Dustin Crenshaw,
who may be the ideal choice for
fans who actually pine for Paul
McCrane’s Dr. Robert Romano.
“What’s
happening this season,” Zabel
says, “is that we’re getting new
viewers who are young enough
that they’re discovering ‘ER’ as
if it’s a new show. They don’t
have any preconceptions.”
They do now.
They’re mostly good ones, too.
Newsday

STAMOS READY FOR CHALLENGES OF 'ER'
By:
Cindy Pearlman
Published:
November 05, 2006
John Stamos is not
just playing doctor. As "ER's" new
physician, he's quite serious about his
white coat and his rep as the resident
hunk hovering over a gurney.
"I just did a movie
with Eric Dane, but I haven't seen
'Grey's Anatomy,' " Stamos says of the
competition on, uh, another network.
"I'm the true Doctor McSexy.
"Consider that I've
been wet in every episode of 'ER,' "
says Stamos, who plays Dr. Tony Gates, a
Gulf War veteran with a chip on his
shoulder. "I've been called Dr.
McStamoist. I think next week, there's a
pregnant woman whose water even breaks
all over me."
So much for sexy.
I've done a
lot of TV that has failed. Oh,
yeah, "Full House" was a hit, but when
it began, I heard, "This won't last
until Thanksgiving." I guess you can say
joining an established show is the best
job I've ever had.
I don't
really like medical things. My
mom was in the ER for real a few months
ago. My poor mom had burned her house
down. I raced to the ER. I didn't look
around in the name of research.
My friend Bob
Saget is telling people that
now I race into Cedars-Sinai hospital in
Los Angeles to do operations in my spare
time. I switched a heart out last week,
and the woman is fine. She looked up
happy knowing that Uncle Jesse from
"Full House" operated on her.
I tried to do
my own show. Then I said, "Wait
just a minute. Why don't you go on a
show where everybody already watches
it?" But I don't think I was mature
enough to handle "ER" earlier in my
life. It's the right thing to do now.
The big joke is they're giving me great
writing and a lot of money. And people
are watching.
My doc is
starting to get into a romance.
I'm taking care of my best friend's
widow and daughter. It does become
sexual at times. At the same time, I'm
starting to fall for someone in the ER.
The romance will heat up in the next few
weeks.
The best part
is everyone is like, "Wow, we
didn't know you could act." The truth is
I'm an adult now, and I care about my
craft. I want to do my best.
I just make
the medical jargon up. One of
the doctors who teaches us the medical
lingo looked at my new car and couldn't
pronounce Cadillac Escalade. He wants me
to say the most difficult medical terms
and he can't say Escalade?
I asked,
'This will get me more chicks?'
Just kidding. Actually after my public
divorce [from Rebecca Romijn], I've been
kind of searching in my life and
starting over. I feel that the show puts
me in a great place. My life feels full
and satisfying. I'm happier than I've
ever been.
It's funny
that Bob Saget is on NBC doing a game
show ['1 vs. 100']. We're
single-handedly saving the network. The
two idiots from "Full House." It's all
on us.
Chicago Sun Times

ER ACTOR GETS INTO ROLE BY PLAYING WITH GERMS
By: Richard
Harrington
Published:
October 27, 2006
A scenario in which
L.A. punk pioneers the Germs performed
together a quarter-century after the
suicide of lead singer Darby Crash never
entered Pat Smear's head. Even in his
wildest imagination.
"No. Never could have
thought of it. Never thought I'd play
with those guys again," the band's
guitarist admits.
Or that Darby Crash
would be revived by an actor who plays
an emergency-room doctor on television.
Shane West — best
known as "ER" intern Ray Barnett — plays
Crash in the upcoming biopic "What We Do
Is Secret," whose title comes from the
hyperkinetic 42-second opening track on
the Germs' only full-length album,
1979's "(GI)."
A synopsis of Germs
history necessarily races by as fast,
and as chaotically, as most of the
band's tunes, beginning in the late
'70s, when punk first roared in London,
New York and Los Angeles. That's where
pals-since-high-school Georg Ruthenberg
and Jan Paul Beahm — soon reborn as Pat
Smear and Darby Crash — formed the Germs
with bassist Lorna Doom and
just-for-a-minute drummer Dottie Danger,
who, as Belinda Carlisle, went on to
front the Go-Gos. She was replaced by
Don Bolles.
In 1977 came
"Forming/Sexboy," one of the first
American punk singles, and a shambolic
debut at Los Angeles' Whiskey, quickly
followed by an exile from other local
venues because of vandalism off- and
onstage; the "(GI)" album produced by
Joan Jett; the increasingly erratic
behavior of the drug-addicted Crash and
his departure from the band for a brief,
unsuccessful solo career; a Germs
reunion show at the Starwood on Dec. 3,
1980; and Crash's suicide by heroin
overdose four days later — just one day
before John Lennon was fatally shot in
New York.
Crash was 22.
And the stuff of
legend. Just look at Sex Pistol Sid
Vicious, who had followed the same path
a year earlier.
The Germs made
aggressive, technically uncomplicated
music that would inspire scores of
bands, including Nirvana. Kurt Cobain
invited Smear to join that band the year
before his own suicide in 1994. Drummer
Dave Grohl's post-Nirvana band, Foo
Fighters, also featured Smear in its
original incarnation.
West gets the
thumbs-up
A decade ago,
filmmaker Rodger Grossman began work on
"What We Do Is Secret." After years of
interviews and preparation, shooting
finally took place last year. The film
is in postproduction, targeted for next
year's film festivals. Made for Rhino
Films, it features Rick Gonzalez as
Smear, Bijou Phillips as Doom, Noah
Segan as Bolles and West in a
performance that gives the 28-year-old,
best known for family dramas such as
ABC's "Once and Again" and films such as
"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,"
the opportunity to reinvent himself as
an actor.
He already has one
fan.
"I loved Shane the
minute I met him, thought he was
perfect," Smear says.
West does bear an
uncanny resemblance to Crash,
underscored (in the movie) by a copycat
panther tattoo, blue contacts and
prosthetic crooked teeth so strongly
affixed to his own that they had to be
chipped off.
West says that when
he met with Grossman and producer-writer
Michelle Baer Ghaffari (the drummer in a
pre-Germs band with Crash and the gay
rocker's "PR" housemate in "The Decline
of Western Civilization," Penelope
Spheeris' legendary 1981 documentary on
the early L.A. punk scene), "we got
along very well, and they realized they
were talking to someone who knew about
punk. It had always been my favorite
type of music when I was little — my dad
was in a punk band. It was something
that not everybody knows about, but I
knew about it, and I was a fan of the
Germs and of the scene. I practiced with
Pat and Don, started learning the songs,
and it just kind of grew from there."
Last year, the Germs
and West (whom Bolles nicknamed Shane
Wreck) began playing around the Los
Angeles area. Doom hadn't touched a base
since their last show in 1980. Smear
says, "The more we did it, the more we
liked doing it, so the more we booked —
Chicago, New York, San Diego — mostly
weekends because Shane was booked up
Monday through Friday with 'ER.' "
Smear makes
sure it's authentic
Smear got the role in
the film he wanted: working on the music
and training non-musician actors to play
instruments, sort of. "My attitude was
this is a punk rock band, anybody can
learn to be a punk rock band," Smear
says. "Most of the scenes are of the
band live, and I didn't want to try and
fake this in the studio."
The film will mix
Germs music with what Smear calls "Baby
Germs" music, and Smear also produced
the other faux bands, the Mae Shi as
L.A. synth-punks the Screamers and the
Bronx as hardcore legend Black Flag.
Smear had the actors
play at a 2004 party "to have the
experience of playing live as a band."
During that performance, the actors
handed over their instruments to their
Germs counterparts for an impromptu
reunion. "We did one rehearsal the day
of the show, and it just all came back,
which was really weird," Smear says. "Me
and Don always played with a weird ESP
anyways — and we'd played together since
then — so it was more scary than
emotional."
The band played nine
concerts in 14 days, and West says he
wants to make it clear that "no one is
replacing or necessarily trying to be
Darby. It's getting the Germs music out
there to people who haven't been able to
hear it and to people who did and want
to enjoy it again."
The Seattle Times

'ER': TODAY IT IS A HIT...STILL
By: Robert
Philpot
Published:
October 26, 2006
What
do you get a a hit hospital series for
its Bar Mitzvah? A fountain pen? Hell,
who could read a doctor's handwriting
anyway?
A check?
Something tells me
that after 12 seasons, with 13 now under
way, the producers of "ER" have cashed
their share of checks already.
Check this out,
then: How about a hot new McSexy doctor
guaranteed to be a Band-Aid for what
ails just about anyone, whose smoldering
molten-lava looks would cure a case of
hot flashes from a corridor away?
One-time bad boy
to the bimah: Not exactly chopped liver,
John Stamos now dons hospital whites on
Thursday nights as the ultimate HMO:
"Hunk of Medicine on Order." His new
character, Tony Gates, swings open the
door, and enters the house full of
swagger and sweat.
As paramedic/med
student, Gates hinges -- as does the
veteran actor -- on the kindness of the
old hands at "ER."
One of those --
though young hand may be a better way to
describe the late-30ish David Zabel --
has been on call since season eight as
executive storywriter. Now exec producer
of one of TV's ratings titans, Zabel
oversees the stat and status of "ER,"
which has found some new life and
breathing space during this -- its Bar
Mitzvah year.
Today, it is a
mensch? Always has been, claims Zabel, a
Princeton grad with a new tiger to grab
by the tale.
"The show has
always been good," he notes. "Over 13
years, it has risen and fallen in
popularity" -- sometimes robust, other
times nursed along -- but that's no
reflection on what has been its
consistent quality.
"Now there's a
combination of a brand-new cast -- John
is the most immediate example -- and a
huge tune-in on Thursday nights on the
network."
Tune-in ... turn-ons:
Is there romance in store for Gates?
In store? Check
the shelves now; the series is fully
loaded with a bar code that scans sexy.
"They're two people drawn to each
other," says the producer of Gates and
Neela Rasgotra -- played by Parminder
Nagra -- "but they try to put the brakes
on, which becomes harder and harder."
Sounds like the
Bar Mitzvah boy has got some real adult
concerns this season. And why not, asks
Zabel, who also answers to the title of
screenwriter (the upcoming film
"Keith"): "I'm trying to treat it like a
new show, a reinvention of what the show
was."
Stamos to the
rescue?
No, this isn't
"Rescue 9/11," but ... "Yeah," says
Stamos with sweet sarcasm. "Me and Saget,"
he says of Bob Saget, his former "Full
House" co-star, current host of the hot
"1 vs. 100" and still-close buds, "we're
single-handedly saving the network. The
two idiots from 'Full House.' "
Someone, please,
pinch his cheeks. Or, better yet, buy
him that pen; ratings indicate that
he'll have a lot of signing to do.
PR Inside

ER STAR INNES DAMAGES BACK
Published:
October 26, 2006
ER actress
Laura Innes
has damaged her spine after playing
injured DR KERRY WEAVER in the US
TV Show
for 10 years.
The 47-year-old star has received
treatment on her back after noticing
regular discomfort there.
Her character in
ERhas recently had hip surgery
in the show meaning she no longer has to
limp.
Innes says, "My real back was getting
screwed up.
"I got a bone density test and the
bottom of my spine is starting to curve
on one side from 10 years of raising my
hip.
"I've just started going to the
chiroprator.
I don't need an operation."
PR Inside

NEW 24, HOUSEWIVES AND ER CASTING
Published:
October 26, 2006
Powers Boothe has been tapped to play
the new vice president on Fox's "24" and
Mark Deklin has joined ABC's "Desperate
Housewives," while Kip Pardue has come
on board NBC's "ER." All roles are
recurring, says Variety.
On "24," from 20th Century Fox TV and
Imagine TV, Boothe will play Noah
Daniels, the vice president under new
U.S. President Wayne Palmer (D.B.
Woodside).
On the Touchstone TV-produced
"Housewives," Deklin ("Justice") will
play Bill Pearce, a handsome widower who
gets to know Gabrielle (Eva Longoria)
when she becomes a consultant on a
pageant his 11-year-old daughter is in.
On "ER," Pardue will play a male nurse
who becomes involved with nurse Samantha
Taggart (Linda Cardellini).
Variety

IN YEAR 13, 'ER' SHOWS STRENGTH FOR ITS AGE
By: Robert
Philpot
Published:
October 19, 2006
Pop quiz: What's the
hottest show on NBC's prime-time schedule?
a) Studio 60 on the
Sunset Strip, which some critics have
called the best new show of the season.
b) Friday Night
Lights, which The New York Times
compared to fine art.
c) The Office,
which won a best-comedy Emmy.
d) None of the above.
If you answered "d" and
then blurted, "It's ER," you're
right. According to Nielsen Media
Research, the medical drama that premiered
in September 1994 was consistently NBC's
top-rated series for the "official" TV
season's first three weeks, which ended
Oct. 8. Ratings for week four were
unavailable at press time, but NBC boasted
that the Oct. 12 episode beat its
competition in all demographics, including
the 18- to 34-year-old set, some of whom
were only 6 when ER premiered.
That ratings rout has
come against Shark, a CBS drama
once considered the season's surest bet
for a new hit, given its formidable
lead-in (CSI) and combustible
big-name star (James Woods). And it comes
against Six Degrees, a much-hyped
ABC drama with its own muscular lead-in (Grey's
Anatomy). ER has been
performing so strongly, in fact, that NBC
has dropped a plan to replace it,
midseason, with the drama The Black
Donnellys (part of a strategy to avoid
ER's frequent reruns), and will
keep it in its 9 p.m. Thursday slot all
season long.
From a critic's
standpoint, this is baffling, at the
least. As often happens with long-running
dramas, ER has recycled plot lines
and ideas so often it's a wonder anyone
cares anymore. I've lost count of the
show's innumerable nervous medical
students, cocky interns and verbally
abusive surgeons and supervisors, and
become bored with its patented
cliffhangers (last season's finale
involved gunfire -- as did the previous
season's). During the series' run, at
least two health-care professionals have,
literally, killed to protect their
children, and every pregnancy and birth
seems to require some kind of
complication.
That said, I've missed
very few episodes during the show's
tenure, relegating its former time-slot
rival Without a Trace to
secondary-viewing status even as it stole
some of ER's water-cooler cachet.
ER is sort of my marriage show:
I've stuck with it through better or
worse, even through the shark-jumping days
of whiny Lucy Knight (Kellie Martin), who
was killed off in 2000 and whose presence
has rarely if ever been acknowledged
since. Then again, ER's pacing
routinely leaves whole subplots
unresolved.
The show's serialized
elements, at one time a rarity on
prime-time TV, made the first few seasons
addictive. (It didn't hurt that
Seinfeld and Friends were also
a part of NBC's Thursday ratings
juggernaut.) Now, staying hooked on ER
is partly a matter of stubborn commitment,
and partly the anticipation of great guest
performances, including John Mahoney's
touching change-of-pace appearance this
season as a drag queen, and Forest
Whitaker's work, tonight, as a former
patient who sues Luka Kovac (Goran Visnjic).
I had a few other
theories as to why viewers have stuck
around, and I bounced them off of David
Zabel, one of the show's executive
producers, and
Tony Conner, who runs the
"ER Headquarters" Web site.
Yes, they're probably a little biased, but
would you ask someone who's not a
fan why the show continues to be so
successful?
ER has only
specks of serial. Because they're so
Byzantine, Lost and 24 have
changed prime-time serialized dramas.
Viewers are left thinking they can't miss
a minute, much less an episode. ER
mixes things up, with long-term plot lines
sharing screen time with stories that are
held to one episode. And its narrative is
not so convoluted that you'll feel, well,
lost if you miss a week or two.
"It's not as purely
procedural as the CSIs and the
Law & Orders, but it has elements of
that," Zabel says. "It's not as serialized
as Lost or 24 or
Desperate Housewives, but it does
allow the characters to move forward in
their lives and different things to happen
to them and for them to change. So to me,
the show is the best combination of those
two main modes of storytelling, which are
the two most prominent modes of
storytelling in hourlong television right
now."
The mistake many of
this season's failed or flailing
serialized dramas make is trying to be too
much like Lost, demanding that
viewers with already overloaded TiVos give
yet another show their obsessive
attention.
For the most part,
viewers haven't bitten.
The revolving cast
keeps the show off life support. Like
Law & Order, ER has survived a
complete turnover of its original cast,
although Noah Wyle still pops his head in
every now and then. "I think sometimes the
turnover in cast is perceived as a
weakness," says Zabel. "But in fact, I
think it's probably a huge strength.... As
good as our actors were in the beginning,
in 1994, we've managed to replace those
actors, when they've left, with other
great actors who became new characters we
could tell new kinds of stories with. That
broadened our range."
Actors new and old have
overlapped. For instance, during original
heartthrob George Clooney's final season,
Goran Visnjic came on board and began to
establish himself as the replacement
heartthrob. Anyone who discovered ER
after Clooney's departure was, more or
less, stumbling onto a new show. "I think
we're seeing that this year," Zabel says.
"There's a bunch of young viewers being
brought to Thursday nights by shows like
Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy,
and I think at [9] o'clock, those
younger viewers are finding our show as if
it's new."
Speaking of
Grey's Anatomy, its move to
Thursdays gave ER a shot in the
arm. Granted, had ABC moved Grey's
to a 9 p.m. face-off with ER
instead of its current 8 p.m. tussle with
CSI, ER might now be in
critical condition. When ABC announced the
move, Zabel was relieved not to be going
toe-to-toe with Grey's, but his
preference would have been for Grey's
to stay put on Sundays. "I was
concerned that nobody would want to watch
a medical show if they had just watched
another medical show," Zabel says.
"The opposite thing seems to be
happening....The people who finish
Grey's Anatomy -- and CSI, for
that matter -- all those millions of
viewers, when they're looking at what's on
at [9] o'clock, [are] choosing to watch
ER."
ER
will be there for you. Except for its
two-hour series premiere in 1994, which
ran on a Monday, ER has always
been in the same Thursday time slot,
and the network has stuck with it. "The
networks seem to pull their new shows so
quickly," says
Tony Conner, "that most
viewers get hooked on a show and then it
is gone. With ER, [we] can count on
it being there." Compare that with some of
this season's most challenging shows, like
Smith (canceled), Kidnapped
(moving, and not getting a second season)
or Vanished (moved, but probably
gone, for all intents and purposes) -- all
orphaned after only a few weeks on the
air. These days, most new network shows
don't get a chance to connect with viewers
-- and vice versa.
The words "Intubate!"
and "Clear!" contain subliminal messages
that make people tune in every week.
Just kidding about that one.
Star-Telegram

FROM LIFE SUPPORT TO MIRACULOUS RECOVERY FOR 'ER'
By: Bill Carter
Published:
October 12, 2006
This
should be an axiom of television programming if it isn’t
already: Never take your most popular show off the air
for three months in the middle of a season.
That was what NBC intended to do this year
with “ER,” its long-running hit on Thursday
nights at 10 p.m. Eastern time. Of course
NBC never expected “ER” to be its most
popular show again.
But after three weeks of
what can only be described as a stunning
ratings performance by that 13-year-old
medical drama, NBC has reconsidered its plan
to shelve the series from January to April
in favor of an untried drama called “The
Black Donnellys.”
“I will confirm that ‘ER’
is not going to go away until the spring,”
said Kevin Reilly, president of NBC
Entertainment. “We are going to keep ‘ER’ in
its time period for at least 22 episodes
this season.”
The “at least” is also
significant because rather than thinking of
ways to supplant “ER” this season, NBC and
the show’s creators are considering
expanding the series to 24 or 25 episodes to
cover more weeks of the season with original
episodes.
The entire strategy for
the future of “ER” is up in the air. David
Zabel, who runs the show as executive
producer, after the long tenure of John
Wells, said the plan had been to get through
this truncated season and then end the
series after one more season next year.
In a telephone interview
this week he said that idea was being
rethought. “As long as we can keep doing
what we’re doing, I don’t see any reason the
show can’t keep going on,” he said.
Rather than relegating
the series to part-time status this year,
Mr. Zabel said, he is all for expanding it.
Networks often order additional episodes of
their most popular shows to limit the number
of in-season repeats.
Mr. Reilly said NBC had
initially concluded that “ER” was faring
worse and worse with repeats during the
season and wanted to give “The Black
Donnellys” a chance to grab some of the
audience available in the Thursday time
slot. Yesterday’s decision to continue “ER”
had nothing to do with the quality of “The
Black Donnellys,” said Mr. Reilly, who
called that new show excellent.
The remarkable turn of
events for “ER,” which was presumed to be
making a few last turns on the stage before
heading for the exit, is entirely due to
what the show has accomplished in the season
that began last month.
“ER” has been asked to
perform an operation that might seem
far-fetched even in its own emergency-room
plotlines. It has been assigned the job of
saving a sagging network’s life on the most
important night of the week.
NBC, which once dominated
Thursdays — the night for which advertisers
pay the most to reach viewers because of
weekend events like movie openings and car
sales — has been severely injured by the
scheduling of the most formidable shows that
two competing networks have to offer.
This season, with ABC
adding the hottest show on television,
“Grey’s Anatomy,” to Thursday nights at 9,
facing off against what had previously been
the most-watched show on television, CBS’s
“CSI,” NBC has taken a ferocious beating in
that hour. That meant that “ER” confronted a
seemingly impossible task at 10 p.m.:
recruiting an audience back to NBC on that
show’s merits alone.
And that is exactly what
“ER” has done. It is somehow among the
top-rated shows this season despite these
facts: In raw numbers ABC’s 10 p.m. show,
“Six Degrees,” inherits 24.2 million viewers
watching the preceding “Grey’s Anatomy”
while “ER” inherits only 9.9 million viewers
watching NBC’s “Deal or No Deal.” “ER” lifts
that number to 15 million viewers while its
ABC counterpart plummets to just 10.7
million.
The performance is even
more impressive for “ER” in ratings for the
18-to-49-year-old audience that NBC uses as
its main measuring stick of success. By that
measure “ER” is the No. 4 show on television
this season.
One key to the comeback
by “ER” was CBS’s decision to move its
resident hit in that time period, “Without a
Trace,” to Sunday nights. “Without a Trace”
had begun to beat “ER” consistently last
season, one reason the NBC show faced so
many intimations of mortality.
But Mr. Reilly argued
that the consistent quality of “ER” has
brought back viewers and attracted some new
ones. “It never stopped being compelling
television,” he said. “It still has that
adrenaline rush and emotional impact.”
A subtle advantage that
may not have been apparent originally has
been the complete turnover of the show’s
cast. Not one of the original actors, who
included
George Clooney
and Noah Wyle, remains. “But younger viewers
don’t know that group,” Mr. Zabel said,
pointing out that a female fan in her early
20’s would probably have been a child in bed
at 10 p.m. when the series started.
Now the show has added a
familiar star, John Stamos, as a cast
regular, which Mr. Reilly said was expected
to give the show an additional boost. He
plays a paramedic studying to be a doctor.
Mr. Zabel agreed with the
prediction, saying, “John is a charming,
dynamic character who brings us a color we
didn’t have.” But he noted that the
continuing stars
Goran Visnjic
and
Maura Tierney
have also taken off as lead characters on
the series, although that has happened
largely under the radar.
“They’re still the new
guys,” he said, “even though they’ve been on
the show for seven years.”
The
New York Times

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