I watched the ER finale last night. 15 years. Wow. It doesn’t seem possible. I remember literally flipping a coin to decide whether to watch ER or Chicago Hope, as both hospital dramas premiered the same night. Thankfully, I believe I chose correctly.
I have to admit, I haven’t watched ER for a few years, ever since they had a storyline where an Iraq vet admitted to torturing and killing Iraqi civilians. That really pissed me off, bad enough to make me swear off the show I’ve loved for all these years.
But since this was the last season, I thought I would give it a chance. And they did a nice job with the final season, especially with the past character cameos. It was nice seeing Doug and Carol, although seeing them in Chicago would have been more satisfying.
I believe a lot of people are going to say that last night’s finale wasn’t “spectacular”, but I honestly loved it. They paid homage to the pilot (having the Nurse Lydia (who hasn’t been on the show in years) wake Archie, the same way she did Dr. Greene in the first scene of the show), and threw in nods to several of their most memorable episodes (including the best episode ever written for television, ‘Loves Labor Lost’), so I was satisfied. And you can never go wrong with Ernest Borgnine, as well as a quick, funny cameo by Marilu Henner as an overbearing mother-in-law.
Plus, in a nice little tie to the past, Mark Greene’s daughter, Rachel, appeared as a potential new med student. Carter even called her, “Dr. Greene” at the end of the show. Made me a little misty, as I believe that Anthony Edwards’s character is one of the deepest, most endearing to ever appear on television. I always hated that he left the show.
All in all, I thought it was a nice finale to a long-loved show. They really redeemed themselves with me this season. Now, I’ll actually miss it.
If you’re still interested in watching the finale, NBC is re-running it in it’s entirety on Saturday, April 4th at 8PM Eastern. If you can’t catch it then, watch it here:
xhttp://www.nbc.com/ER/video/episodes/#vid=1080421
