Well, West Wing has ended, Vicar of Dibley has gone to the Vicarage in the television backlot and I have just finished Series Five of 24 so what do I do now? I watch Series 13 of ER which just returned last night and now I have a digital box I can see it earlier than normal. Hooray! This is another of these wonderful American series that I have watched from Episode One.
According to the ER website, the pilot episode was filmed in an old, abandoned hospital due to a lack of time and money to build a set. One was built soon after at the Warner Brothers studios in Burbank, California although the show makes extensive use of location shoots in Chicago, most notably the city's famous 'El' trains. (These trains also featured in the film The Fugitive with Harrison Ford)
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. The show's setting, County General Hospital, is loosely based on the former Cook County Hospital on West Harrison Street in Chicago (Again featured in The Fugitive)
Though the show does not pull in the 25m viewers it used to, it still has respectable ratings of 12m+ and after 13 years that is pretty good. The series has lost most of its original cast either by death, destruction or boredom, but the most mourned departure was that of George Clooney, who is without doubt the most gorgeous man on the planet. (I know I have gone on about Richard Armitage being utterly wonderful gorgeous and charming, but I am afraid that GC is still Numero Uno in those stakes). The wailing and gnashing of teeth on the receipt of this dreadful news could be heard worldwide.
However, Goran Visnjic joined the cast of NBC’s “ER” in 1999, playing the role of Dr. Luka Kovac, a Croatian doctor who immigrated to the United States after the violent deaths of his wife and children. Goran has plugged the 'sexy charismatic doctor' gap left post GC and is also well up in the gorgeous stakes. He has consoled me somewhat for the loss of George (whose films I have on my DVD shelves needless to say so I am not deprived) but I have heard rumours that he may be leaving as well. What to do then?
