| Subject: ER has begun again! :-) |
Author:
Lorraine
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Date Posted: 12:06:37 12/18/06 Mon
Hi gang,
In my previous post I miscalculated when the 2006 ER episodes would stop on TNT daytime programming and the series would resume its 1994 beginnings.
Last Friday TNT aired the 2 hour pilot that started the show. Today's 2 back-to-back episodes were "Day One" (the first show of the series) and "Coming Home" (the episode that featured Carol Hathaway's shaky return to County General after her suicide attempt).
You know, it felt a little odd watching the the beginning episodes again, having spent nearly the past entire year watching the show up to its current 2006 point.
Suddenly, all the old familiar faces are back--Mark Greene is alive and well again, John Carter--who just last week was an assured, seasoned pro (with flecks of gray in his hair!!) living and working in the chaos of the Sudan--is once again the wide-eyed, bumbling, fresh-faced Bambi trying desperately to keep up and keep his head. It's a pleasure to watch the early days of Sherry Stringfield's Susan Lewis again, and Margulies's warm and watchful Nurse Extraordinaire, Hathaway. The irritating, officious Kerry Weaver is nowhere in sight yet; nor the gentle Jeannie Boulet; nor Elizabeth Corday, nor the wittily vicious and unfortunate Robert Romano, nor Luka Kovach... and all the others to come.
And everybody looks amazingly young--including George's Doug Ross, all wavy dark hair, full cheeks and sad, sleepy eyes.
Just now I'm watching the wonderful classic film, "The Philadelphia Story" and in many scenes Cary Grant (age 36 here) looks strikingly like George Clooney circa 1994. Watching Grant in this movie after having just watched George in his ER beginnings, I TOTALLY get all the "new Cary Grant" comparisons GC started receiving then and later. (I've also seen a bit of Gregory Peck and--most especially in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"--a touch of Clark Gable in George, too.)
Incidentally, that "new Cary Grant" thing seemed to be tossed around about almost every charismatic actor coming down the cinema pike for awhile there, including British star Hugh Grant around the time of "Four Weddings and a Funeral," but I never saw Cary Grant in Hugh, did any of you? Not at all.
They share the last name, of course. And Hugh Grant certainly has charm to spare, especially in "Four Weddings." And Archie Leach (Cary Grant's real name) was originally a Brit. But I think that's about where the resemblances, such as they are, end.
Anyway, I started all this by saying ER is back! And oh, one more thing I noticed: in Friday's pilot movie, Dr. Peter Benton (played by hunky Eriq LaSalle) was MUCH more talkative and emotionally available, not just in his dealings with newbie Carter, but generally. I was sort of struck by that. Though the signs of what would become known as Peter's supreme arrogance were here and there, at this early stage of the series he seemed comparatively friendlier and a bit more of a team player. LaSalle's portrayal of Benton would evolve as he "found" this compelling character (and, perhaps, gained the confidence to put aside the performer's natural desire to have audiences like him/his character) and Peter Benton would become much more closed off, taciturn, dismissive and not terribly likeable.
This is a bit of terrific, gang. I'm African-American, and discovering in a major television show a black character capable of heroic stuff who could nevertheless be a real prick was a revelation to me, a welcome sign that American television was finally ready to present African-American lives with real complexity. Though throughout the run of the series Peter Benton would reveal time and again what an insufferable jerk he could be, he was not evil, never a villain--just human, as human as everyone else.
What great television ER once was, and for the most part still is.
You agree?
Lorraine
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