ER: Season 1 (1994-95)

I first sat down to watch the extended pilot episode of ER and a couple of others back when I was at uni. I liked it but for some reason I didn't go back - I watched a lot of CSI and West Wing instead. It's taken me more than a couple of months to watch all of the first season, not because I didn't enjoy it, more for time constraints. The pedigree of Michael Crichton and John Wells (who went on to The West Wing) and the presence of George Clooney made me want to revisit the show, and I also wanted to watch something that wasn't science fiction, crime or very modern. 

As the series went on I found ER to be utterly enthralling, and the primary reason is the investment the series and thus I made in the characters. The pulse-pounding, heart-stopping pace of the medical drama was pretty gripping too, with bravura camera work that made you really feel the tension of the life and death drama of an emergency room. Casualty eat your heart out. Noah Wyle's med student John Carter is the viewer's window into this world, and it was good to see him grow and develop his medical knowledge over the series, while grumpy Dr Benton (Eriq La Salle) mellowed, partly as the result of his mother's decline and death. Mark (Anthony Edwards) had marital troubles, and Susan (Sherry Stringfield) had to deal with her irritating leech of a sister. George Clooney's Dr Ross mostly got to be swoonsome and screwed up relationships because of it, and mooned over betrothed Nurse Hathaway (Julianna Margulies) who spent the pilot episode half dead after a suicide attempt.

In lesser hands these storylines could have been trite, but they were skillfully woven into the drama of ER and influenced the doctors' and nurses' professional lives to varying degrees. The many guest stars (including Donna Moss!) had interesting ailments and were occasionally heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious. All of these aspects - the cast, the writing, the direction - all added up to a top notch season of television. At some point I hope to catch up on the next 14 seasons, but that may have to wait a while.