Thursday, October 23, 2003

DNR: Previously on 'ER', I cared about the damn show.

I understand the idea that they now want "to focus stories on a select cast member for particular episodes". It makes sense.

But PRATT?

Let me be clear: no one has ever cared about Dr. Pratt, and if this episode was supposed to change that, it didn't. It was as painful as The Never-Ending Death March Of Mark Greene, only without a happy ending. (Hell, Mark's father's never-ending death was more interesting than this.)

This show is now painfully bereft of compelling characters. Who did I miss this episode? Carter, Luka (in it for a minute), Mark Greene, Doug Ross, Carol Hathaway, Donald Ansbaugh (does he still work there?), Jeannie Boulet (damn I miss the plot with her and Scott Ansbaugh), David Morgenstern, Carl Vucelich, Kerry Weaver (back when she was gay), Yosh, Doyle, Carla Reese, Reece Benton, Gallant (where did he go?), Gamma Carter, Chris Law, Wild Willie, Dennis Gant, Susan's sister Chloe, Pratt's retarded brother (another dropped plot line), Abby's mom, that old guy played by Red Buttons who kept whining to Carter when he terminally ill wife never got better, Shemp, Tag, and, above all else, St. Peter Benton, one of the best damn television characters ever. Complicated, intense, real -- unlike anything that's going on the show today.

You see how many interesting characters the show used to have?

Hell, Cleo Finch was more interesting than this shit, and she was played by a robot.

I complain because this once was the best hour of television every week, because there has not been a better hour of scripted drama in the past decade than the "Love's Labor's Lost" episode from season one.

And now, a decade later, they've pissed it all away. It's like watching Emmitt Smith still trying to play football in an Arizona Cardinals uniform, long after Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin and Jimmy Johnson have left the scene.

The only interesting character left is Rocket Romano, and God help them if they find some way to diminish his role on the show. (God help us all if we can't find anything better to watch in that case.)

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