ER has had many memorable episodes, and is particularly notable for broadcasting a live episode, "Ambush," in 1997, with the NBC camera crew disguised as a PBS crew making a documentary film in the hospital. The actors performed the show again three hours later so that the West Coast airing would be live as well. This episode received Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Directing and Outstanding Lighting Direction (Electronic), and won the Emmy for Outstanding Technical Direction/Camera/Video for a Series.
The first departure was that of Sherry Stringfield in 1996, when her character, Dr. Susan Lewis, transferred her residency to Phoenix, Arizona, in the Season 3 episode "Union Station." In 2001, Stringfield returned to the series, reprising her role of Dr. Lewis, in the Season 8 episode "Never Say Never." She departed again in the Season 12 premiere, "Canon City." This second departure was not depicted, but rather mentioned by character Dr. Kerry Weaver four episodes later in "Wake Up," when she explains that Susan accepted a tenure position at a hospital in Iowa after having been denied tenure at County.
After playing Dr. Anna Del Amico for one season, Maria Bello was simply not a part of the ensemble cast when Season 5 began. Like Susan Lewis's second exit, her character's departure was mentioned but not depicted; in the season premiere, "Day for Knight," Carter explains to new medical student Lucy Knight that the locker she is inheriting used to belong to Anna Del Amico, who is working in a pediatric ER back in Philadelphia, where she has family and a boyfriend.
George Clooney left the show in 1999, in the Season 5 episode "The Storm, Part 2," when his character, Dr. Doug Ross, quit before being fired by County for his involvement in a patient's death. Clooney made a brief reappearance in the Season 6 episode "Such Sweet Sorrow" when his character reunited with Carol Hathaway.
Gloria Reuben departed early in Season 6, in the episode "The Peace of Wild Things," when her character, PA Jeanie Boulet, decided to become a stay-at-home mom and care for her newly adopted HIV-positive baby.
Kellie Martin, who played medical student Lucy Knight, left the series midway through Season 6 in the episode "All In The Family," when her character was killed by a patient suffering from an undiagnosed case of schizophrenia; his psychotic break occurred before a backed-up psychiatry department could arrive in the ER for a consult.
Julianna Margulies left the show at the end of Season 6, in the episode "Such Sweet Sorrow," when her character, nurse Carol Hathaway, decided on the spur of the moment to go to Seattle, Washington, and reunite with Doug Ross, her true love and the father of her twin daughters.
Eriq La Salle's character, Dr. Peter Benton, departed in the Season 8 episode "I'll Be Home For Christmas" in order to spend more time with his son, Reese, and his girlfriend, former fellow ER doctor Cleo Finch, portrayed by Michael Michele, who also left the show in the same episode.
Paul McCrane's character, Dr. Robert Romano, whose arm had been severed just above the elbow by a helicopter's tail rotor in the Season 9 premiere "Chaos Theory," was killed in the Season 10 episode "Freefall" when a helicopter that was taking off from the hospital roof was buffeted by strong winds, causing it to crash on the roof and plummet over the side of the building; it fell into a crowded ambulance bay and landed squarely on Romano.
Sharif Atkins left the series twice; once in the Season 10 episode "Where There's Smoke," when his character, Dr. Michael Gallant, revealed that the Army was sending him to Iraq, and more definitively in the Season 12 episode "The Gallant Hero and The Tragic Victor," when he was killed by a roadside bomb while serving a second tour.
Alex Kingston's character, Dr. Elizabeth Corday, left the series in the Season 11 episode "Fear" after getting in trouble for performing an illegal organ donation procedure; rather than being summarily fired, County offered her a demotion to a non-tenured position, but she turned it down and opted to return to England instead. In an interview with Britain's Radio Times magazine, Kingston spoke of being written off the show due to her age, a statement that sparked some controversy. She later qualified that claim.[1]
Ming-Na left in Season 11 when her character, Dr. Jing-Mei "Deb" Chen, quit the ER in the episode "Twas the Night" in order to care for her ailing father. This was the second time her character left County General; in Season 1, medical student "Deb" Chen recurred in an eight episode story arc which concluded (apparently not permanently) with her quitting medical school after deciding she was better suited to research than to applied medicine.
Noah Wyle left in the Season 11 finale, "The Show Must Go On." His character, Dr. John Carter, had decided to reunite in Africa with his girlfriend Kem Likasu (portrayed by Thandie Newton). During Season 12, Wyle returned as Carter and made guest appearances in four episodes: "Quintessence of Dust," "Darfur," "No Place to Hide," and "There Are No Angels Here."
Laura Innes left midway through Season 13, in the episode "A House Divided," when a reluctant Kovač was forced by budget cuts to fire her character, Dr. Kerry Weaver. After bracing for a battle to keep her position, and in spite of the fact that Kovač realized he must find a way to keep her on staff, Weaver ultimately decided to resign from County and accept a job offer from a television station in Miami, Florida.
Since the beginning, ER has been widely acclaimed for its tradition of bringing in great established actors and actresses to fill guest star roles giving colorful story arcs on the show. Each season continues the honorous tradition with many notable names and some who have went to become bigger names in TV and film.
Many memorable appearances on the show have included Kirsten Dunst in 1996–97 (as a troubled teenager), Ewan McGregor in 1997 (as a convenience store gunman), John Cullum in a series of 15 episodes between 1997 and 2000 (as Mark Greene's father), Rebecca De Mornay in 1999 (as a breast cancer survivor), Emile Hirsch in 1999 (as a teenage alcholic), Ed Asner in 2003 (as a thieving clinician), Cynthia Nixon in 2005 (as a stroke victim), John Leguizamo in 2005 (as Dr. Victor Clemente, a zealous but troubled attending physician), James Woods in 2006 (as an ALS-stricken biochemistryprofessor), and most recently, academy award winner Forest Whitaker in 2006–07 (as a patient who files a malpractice suit and takes desperate revenge against Dr. Kovač).
Guest stars whose performances garnered them Emmy nominations include Rosemary Clooney in 1995 (for playing Alzheimer's patient "Madame X"), Alan Alda in 2000 (for playing Dr. Gabe Lawrence, an Alzheimer's-stricken doctor and one-time teacher of Kerry Weaver), Mary McDonnell in 2002 (for playing Eleanor Carter, the mother of Dr. Carter), Don Cheadle in 2003 (for playing Paul Nathan, a medical student with Parkinson's Disease), and Bob Newhart in 2004 (for playing Ben Hollander, an architectural model maker losing his sight). Sally Field (playing Maggie Wyczenski, Abby Lockhart's mother) and Ray Liotta (playing a regret-ridden, dying alcoholic) won Emmys in 2001 and 2005, respectively, for their portrayals.
Supporting cast
The following actors have played supporting roles for three or more seasons:
Due to a lack of time and money to build a set, the pilot episode of ER was filmed in the former Linda Vista Community Hospital in Los Angeles, an old facility that ceased operating as a medical center in 1990.[2] A set modeled after that hospital was built soon after at the Warner Bros. studios in Burbank, California, although the show makes extensive use of location shoots in Chicago, most notably the city's famous "El" train platforms.
Michael Crichton wrote the script that became the pilot episode of the show in the early 1970s. It was based on some of his experiences working in an ER. By the time the pilot episode was shot and aired in 1994, it had been 20 years since it was written. On his commentary track, included on the first season DVD set, Crichton says that the script used to shoot the pilot was virtually unchanged from what he had written 20 years earlier. Dr. Lewis was written as a male character, and though producers decided Lewis should be a woman, that change didn't require an adjustment of her dialogue. The producers also decided Dr. Benton would be African-American, though he wasn't written that way. The original script had to be shortened by about 20 minutes in order to air in a two-hour block on network TV.
The show's setting, County General Hospital, is loosely based on the former Cook County Hospital on West Harrison Street in Chicago.
Trade reports released on August 4, 1998 reported that Anthony Edwards had signed a $35 million dollar pact with Warner Bros. to remain on ER for four additional seasons (through 2002). That made him the highest paid actor on a TV dramatic series at that time.
Anthony Edwards previously played alongside John Cullum (who portrayed Mark Greene's father, David Greene, on ER) on the television series Northern Exposure. Edwards's recurring character suffered from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (aka Allergy to the 20th Century), and Cullum, a member of the main cast, portrayed the local barkeeper.
Julianna Margulies' character, nurse Carol Hathaway, was originally supposed to be only in the pilot episode of the series (she was scripted to commit suicide), but test audiences responded so positively to her that the producers asked Margulies to continue on the show. Carol Hathaway survived her suicide attempt and was written into the series, and Margulies remained a regular cast member for six seasons.
Maria Bello, who played Dr. Anna Del Amico, was set to guest star only on the last three episodes of Season 3, but the show's producers were so impressed by her they decided to keep her on as a regular. She spent the shortest tenure as a cast member on the series.
Several episodes of ER have been directed by cast members:
Anthony Edwards—"Take These Broken Wings" (1996), "Of Past Regret and Future Fear" (1998), "Family Matters" (2000), and "Fear of Commitment" (2001)
Laura Innes—"Power" (1999), "Be Still My Heart" (2000), "Sailing Away" (2001), "If I Should Fall From Grace" (2001), "A Hopeless Wound" (2002), "NICU" (2004), "Nobody's Baby" (2005), "The Human Shield" (2005), "Strange Bedfellows" (2006) and "Tell Me No Secrets" (2006).
Paul McCrane—"Next of Kin" (2002), "The Student" (2004), "Damaged" (2004), "Ruby Redux" (2005), "Blame It On the Rain" (2005), and "Body and Soul" (2006)
The Season 8 episode "On the Beach," which follows Mark Greene's last weeks in life, is notable for its use of profanity in an episode of a TV show aired on an American broadcast network. Greene says "shit" after collapsing while trying to get out of bed, realizing that his brain tumor has finally defeated him. The same expletive was muttered by Peter Benton in Season 2, when he sprains his hand punching a man in the parking lot, and in Season 5, when he is the victim of a racist attack, although in both cases it is barely audible and does not appear on subtitles.
In the Season 1 episode of Friends titled "The One with Two Parts, Part 2," George Clooney and Noah Wyle guest starred as emergency room doctors, although not as their ER characters; Clooney played Dr. Michael Mitchell and Wyle played Dr. Jeffrey Rosen.
The series exists in the same television universe as NBC's Third Watch (1999–2005) and, by extension, Medical Investigation (2005). Dr. Lewis's storyline in the Season 8 episode "Brothers and Sisters" was part of a crossover between ER and Third Watch. The storyline began on ER's Thursday broadcast and continued the following Monday on the Third Watch episode "Unleashed."
Sherry Stringfield was technically the last original cast member to leave ER; her last appearance was in the Season 12 season premiere "Cañon City," whereas Noah Wyle left in the Season 11 finale, "The Show Must Go On." Wyle still served longer on the series than Stringfield, as she was absent from early Season 3 ("Union Station") until early Season 8 ("Never Say Never").
From 1994-2006 (seasons 1-12), the show's opening credits were 50 seconds long and featured James Newton Howard's Emmy-nominated theme music. This opening remained essentially the same (except for cast changes) until 2006 (season 13), when the theme music was cut and a new title card was introduced. The new opening is now 5 seconds long. Producers say that this change was necessary because the previous opening was so long that it took time away from their ability to develop the show's plot.[3]
Anthony Edwards's character, Mark Greene, had a daughter named Rachel who made recurring appearances on the series. On another NBC show, Friends, one of the main characters was also named Rachel Greene (alternatively spelled Green).[4]
With the departure of Laura Innes midway through Season 13, Goran Višnjić currently stands as the longest serving cast member. Deezer D and Yvette Freeman, who play nurse Malik McGrath and Haleh Adams, respectively, are the longest serving supporting cast members, both on since the pilot aired in 1994.
When Abraham Benrubi, who portrayed desk clerk Jerry Markovic, left in the Season 13 premiere "Bloodline," actor Glenn Plummer rejoined the supporting cast reprising his role as Timmy Rawlins, the desk clerk who worked alongside Jerry during ER's first season.
U.S. television ratings
Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of ER on NBC.
Note: Each U.S. network television season starts in late September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps. All times mentioned in this section were in the Eastern & Pacific time zones.
ER won the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award in 1995. In addition, the series has earned 117 Emmy Award nominations, tying the series with Cheers for the most nominations for a single series,[15] as well as 22 Emmy Awards (at least one every year up to and including 2005, except for 2004). It also won the People's Choice Award for "Favorite Television Dramatic Series" every year from 1997 to 2002. Over the years, it has been nominated for and/or won numerous other awards, including Screen Actors Guild Awards, Image Awards, GLAAD Media Awards, and Golden Globe Awards, among others.[16]
The following is a partial list of major awards and nominations received by the show, its cast, and crew.
The first six DVD box sets of ER are unusual in the fact that they are all in anamorphic widescreen even though these episodes were broadcast in a standard 4:3 format. Only the live episode "Ambush" is not in the widescreen format.
The first six seasons of the series have also been released in Canada, Hong Kong, and other markets.
