Cool News
DMANN Has Seen Benton Exit ER!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
Peter Benton leaves “ER” for good tonight, and Mark Greene will be gone by season’s end. As the series begins its ninth season next September, only John Carter and Susan Lewis will remain from the original cast.
It’s pleasing to learn that Benton shares his final moments tonight with Carter, as the two characters share the same kind of link that defined the long, twisted Ross-Hathaway story. Here’s “Dmann” with the dtails:
”I’ll Be Home For Christmas”
It's not much of a secret to anyone who has been watching NBC in the last week, this is the last episode of ER for Eriq Lasalle, and his Dr. Peter Benton. For those keeping score, that leaves just Noah Wyle and Anthony Edwards (who will be leaving after this season) as original cast members who have been around for the full run of ER. Yes, I know Sherry Stringfield was an original cast member, but her leaving for several seasons negates that, sort of like Lecy Goranson leaving and then coming back as Becky on ROSANNE.
The episode takes place on December 13, 2001, which just shows how long in advance NBC makes up it’s schedules. The pre Christmas plots are in full effect, with Dr. Carter baffled about his father (Michael Gross) being in Chicago for the holiday for the first time in years. Euro-Clooney Dr. Kovach is still fretting over his dissappeared frenchie girlfriend (Julie Delpy) and Dr Weaver is flirting with the cutie Ambulance driver.
Dr. Benton is the focus, such as it is on ER. The show goes to a scene with his story line every other shot, and it works. The scene where Benton’s son, Reese is signing about how he loves both his Daddies is rather touching. This is by far, the strongest story that ER has had all year, it’s developed at a good pace, and never seemed to stoop to melodrama. It all comes down to a conflict between the hours he needs to spend for his job at the Hospital, and the hours he needs to spend on being a good father. He chooses to be a father, which is a hard decision, but handled a lot more realistically than I would have expected. Dr. Benton simply does what he has to do. There’s no big moment like when Nurse Hathaway met Clooney in Portland. It appears that Michael Michelle is leaving the show as well, being Benton’s love interest and all.
The story line with Dr. Carter and his Father is also strong this week, with Dad dropping a little info that gives Carter a bit of a shake up. It’s nothing life threatening, but the news isn’t exactly happy, either. This allows Carter a moment to tell Dr. Susan that she is the only thing going right in his life right now. How cute, it's like a regular old romance, only on TV!! I like it.
Dr. Weaver’s lesbian courtship is fun, and not overblown. For a show on NBC, a network that continually hypes every hint of lesbian kissing on FRIENDS, this storyline has been as low key as any on TV, save Willow and Tara on BUFFY.
The stuff with Dr. Kovach, Abby and Delpy is so tired, this is a story that in past years would have been resolved in a week or two, tops, but it continues to drag and drag and drag, not to mention taking time away from other, more interesting stories. It all comes down to Dr. Kovach and how big his heart is, and how he wants to save everyone, in every way. The way they beat us over the head with this is totally un necessarry.
Dr. Corday-Green is seen in one small scene with Dr. Benton, and Dr Green isn’t seen until the last part of the show, in one of the few medical action scenes. Speaking of which
There is a little medical action in this episode is minimal, and almost seems thrown in, as if they realized that it IS a medical show, and ya know, it needs a touch of medical action. It is a medical show, and they need the medical action, but both of the medical scenes seem prefunctory, and frankly, I could have done without either of them. ER manages, in one surgery scene, to be more preachy about guns than an entire season of WEST WING. I know that trauma surgeons are actually this way, but it feels tacked on. They just had to have Dr. Benton go with a bang. Thankfully, they let it all end with a little scene between Dr. Benton and Dr. Carter the former Mentor and student, which feels right.
“I’ll Be Home For Christmas” is by far the best ER of the season so far. Not great, but better than the earlier shows this season. I still wish they would just get back to medical action on this show, rather than having it JUST be about the soap opera of the doctors lives.
Dmann’s rating for “ER”?
***
The Hercules T. Strong Rating System:
“ER” airs 10 p.m. Thursdays on the WB.
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I used to love this show. I gave up on it last year at the beginning of the season because it was becoming more and more a prime time soap opera. I remember when there was humor and joy in this show, lately it justs seems painful and depressing to watch. I caught an episode for the first time in a long while a couple of weeks ago (during sweeps, no less) and I just wanted to fucking kill myself afterward. Too bad. They need to make this the final season and just shoot the dead horse already. Peace out beatches. Oh, and FRODO RULES, MUTHAFUCKA!!!! (had to bring in LotR somehow).
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Ahhhh nostalgia.....
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why is this show still on? GIdeon's Crossing was twice the show ER is.
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Dec 13, 2001 4:05:50 PM CST
Yeah, that's why I liked that episode "The Storm" earlier th
by stephen dedalus
Remember, where the pregnant mother was caught in an ambulance in the middle of a lightning storm? Sure, it was a repeat of one or two previous episodes, but it sure as hell felt like something they would have shown in the first four seasons. Ah, those first four seasons, when ER was the BEST show on television, bar none. Then they started adding characters, Lydia Woodward was given too much power, and then came Kellie Martin... ugh. But the show seems to be getting better, and replacing Martin with with Maura Tierney was a stroke of genius- damn good character, damn good actress. Sally Field is also notable as her mother. ONe problem with "The Storm," though... all the patients lived in the end. In the first four seasons, at least one would be dead.
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Euro-Clooney! That's hilarious! I'm about peeing in my pants right now. You're right, he is SO the Euro-Clooney!
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Remember just how bad "LA Law" got in the final years after the most popular and interesting characters started to leave. Dr.Benton has been the strongest of the original characters the last several seasons. Even Clooney's last season was subpar for him. Dr.Greene is on the same level as Dylan McDermott's Bobby on The Practice, a character that was deep and passionate and now has been reduced to a clown with very little sympathy. I wish Eriq La Salle all the best, I think he's a talented actor and director and will hopefully not disappear.
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I was watching the repeats of Family Ties on Nick at nite a few weeks ago, and it was a story about Jennifer bating up a bully who was picking on her boyfriend. When I saw the boyfriend I told my girlfriend that it was Noah Wylie. So I watched the whole show and saw in the credits that the actors first name was Noah, but the last name was different. I'm wondering if Noah changed his name. Also I know she wasn't in the original 5-7 episodes, but Laura Innes Weaver was a supporting cast member in season one, and turned into a regular cast member in season 2. Plus I think it was in a previous ER talkback, but the show is about Carter. When Noah decides to leave, the show is over!
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There. I've put a new spin on a tired line. :-)
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does anyone else think that Joshua Jackson (Pacey on Dawson's Creek) looks like a younger version of George Clooney?
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Hurray! Benton's gone. He was always such a downer. They sure milked his last walk out though, didn't they? Sheesh that was pitiful. He's never been a guy that it's been easy to feel sorry for. This was just such heavy handed drivel I couldn't take it and drove my wife crazy yelling back at the TV. Just let him go alright? And you can take Kovach with you. He was fine as the dark unknown foreign guy, but now he's just another depressed slob. I miss Mulan and Dr. Malachi. Why is Mulan still in the credits anyways? And about Carrie Weber; She's a villain okay! So I don't want to watch her love life! If someone had to be a lesbian it should have been Jeannie! I miss her too. She at least tried to upbeat throughout all the crap she was given. Now watching her die of AIDS would have been worth some melodrama. Instead they shower the tears on Benton of all people. What a waste.
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What, no mention of Carter being saved from drug addiction by Benton? No mention of him taking the plane from Chi to ATL (home field SHOUT OUT!) with Carter? Nothing more than an awkward hug, and we get a shot of him running by the camera (not even seeing him running into the distance...cripes, that was an obvious shot for even a first-year film student)? Just get rid of Anthony Edwards now so I can officially stop caring about this show. "ER" and "X-Files" must die so I can stop watching everything but SportsCenter and "24," the only show worth watching anymore...and only because of its fast pace, not because of the fairly standard-issue plot.
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