ER is an
American medical drama series created by the late
novelist Michael
Crichton that aired on
NBC from September
1994 to April 2009.
It is set primarily in the emergency room of fictional County General
Hospital in Chicago
, Illinois
. It
was produced by Constant c Productions and
Amblin Entertainment in association
with
Warner Bros. Television Production, Inc. The show
ran for 15 seasons, becoming the longest-running medical drama in
American primetime television history. It won 23 Emmy Awards,
including Outstanding Drama Series (1996), and received 123 Emmy
nominations, the most of any television show in history.
Cast and characters

Original cast of the show
(1994-1995)

Cast of the 15th and final season
(2008-2009)
The original starring cast consisted of
Anthony Edwards as
Dr. Mark Greene,
George Clooney as
Dr.
Douglas "Doug" Ross,
Sherry
Stringfield as
Dr. Susan Lewis,
Noah Wyle as medical student (later Dr.)
John Carter, and
Eriq La Salle as
Dr.
Peter Benton.
Julianna
Margulies guest starred in the pilot as
Nurse Carol Hathaway before becoming part of
the regular cast. Cast members were regularly added and departed
the show starting in the second season, and continuing right up
until the end of the series, though most of the original cast
remained intact for a number of seasons with some additions.
In addition to the main cast,
ER featured a large number
of recurring supporting cast not billed as starring, but frequently
playing notable roles in many episodes during their tenures. The
most common of these roles were those of desk clerks, nurses, and
occasionally doctors not part of the main cast. In addition,
ER featured a significant roster of guest stars, most
frequently portraying the many patients required for each episode.
Many notable celebrities guest starred on the show.
Production
Development
In 1974, author
Michael Crichton
wrote a screenplay based on his own experiences as a medical
resident in a busy hospital emergency room. The screenplay went
nowhere, and Crichton focused on other topics. In 1990, he
published the novel
Jurassic
Park, and in 1993 began a collaboration with director
Steven Spielberg on the
film adaptation of that. The
Crichton-Spielberg team then returned to
ER but decided to
film the story as a two-hour pilot for a television series rather
than as a feature film. Spielberg's
Amblin Entertainment provided
John Wells as the show's executive
producer.The script used to shoot the pilot was virtually unchanged
from what Crichton had written in 1974. The only substantive
changes made by the producers in 1994 made the Susan Lewis
character a woman and the Peter Benton character an
African-American, and shortened the running time by about 20
minutes in order for the pilot to air in a two-hour block on
network TV.
Due to a lack of time and money to build a
set, the pilot episode of ER was filmed in the former
Linda Vista
Community Hospital
in Los Angeles, an old facility that ceased
operating as a medical center in 1990. A set modeled after
Los Angeles County General Hospital's emergency room was built soon
afterwards at the Warner Bros. studios
in Burbank,
California
, although the show makes extensive use of location
shoots in Chicago, most notably the city's famous "L" train platforms.
Steven Spielberg left the show after one year in a producer's
chair, but he made one critical decision with lasting effects: the
Carol Hathaway character, who died at the end of the original
script for the pilot episode, was retained. Having created the
series
Michael Crichton was
credited as an executive producer throughout its run.
John Wells was the series other
initial executive producer and served as show runner for the
initial seasons. Wells was one of the shows most prolific writers
and also became a regular director in later years.
Lydia Woodward was a part of the first season
production team and became an executive producer for the third
season. She took over as show runner for the sixth season while
Wells focused on the development of
Third Watch. She left her executive
producer position at the end of the sixth season but continued to
write episodes throughout the series' run.
Woodward was replaced as show runner by
Jack
Orman. Orman was recruited as a writer-producer for the series
in its fourth season after a successful stint working on
JAG. He was promoted quickly and became
executive producer and show runner for the seventh season. He held
this role for three seasons before leaving the series at the end of
the ninth season. He was a frequent writer and also directed three
episodes of the show.
David Zabel served
as the series' head writer and executive producer in its later
seasons. He initially joined the crew for the eighth season and
became an executive for the twelfth season. Zabel was the series
most frequent writer and contributed to 41 episodes. He also made
his directing debut on the series.
Christopher Chulack was the series' most
frequent director and also worked as a producer on all 15 seasons.
He became an executive producer with the fourth season but
occasionally scaled back his involvement in later years to focus on
new projects while continuing to serve as a consulting producer for
ER. Other executive producers include writers
Carol Flint,
Neal Baer,
R. Scott Gemmill,
Dee
Johnson,
Joe Sachs, and
Janine Sherman Barrois. The series
crew were recognized with awards for writing, directing, producing,
film editing, sound editing, casting, and music.
Broadcasting
ER premiered on September 19, 1994 from 9:00-11:00 p.m.
(EDT) and moved into the 10:00 p.m Thursday night timeslot three
days later, where it remained for all fifteen seasons.
ER
is NBC's second longest-running drama (after
Law & Order), and, the
longest-running American primetime medical drama of all time. On
April 2, 2008, NBC announced that the series would return for its
15th, concluding season. It was originally scheduled to run for 19
episodes before retiring with a two-hour series finale to be
broadcast on March 12, 2009, but NBC announced in January 2009 that
it would extend
ER by an additional three episodes to a
full 22 episode order as part of a deal to launch a new series by
John Wells. ER's final episode aired on April 2, 2009 for a
two-hour episode preceded by a one-hour retrospective special
episode.
Episodes
Among the memorable episodes of
ER is a live episode,
"Ambush," in 1997, with the NBC camera crew disguised as a
PBS crew making a documentary
film in the hospital. The actors performed the show again three
hours later so that the
West Coast airing would be
live as well. This episode received
Emmy
Award nominations for Outstanding Directing and Outstanding
Lighting Direction (Electronic), and won the Emmy for Outstanding
Technical Direction/Camera/Video for a Series.
Most episodes center on the ER, with almost all scenes at the
hospital, but usually include at least one scene outside of the
hospital. In addition, most seasons included at least one storyline
located completely outside of the ER, often outside of Chicago. One
early such instance involved a road trip near Las Vegas, Nevada
(Drs. Ross and Greene). Season Eight included a storyline in Hawaii
(Drs. Greene and Corday); seasons Nine and Ten included storylines
in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Drs. Kovac and Carter); and
Season Twelve included a storyline set in the Darfur region of
Sudan (Drs. Pratt and Carter, with Noah Wyle appearing as a guest
star in the season following his departure from the show).
Format
ER was filmed in 1.78:1
widescreen from the start, even though it was not
broadcast in widescreen until the seventh season when it began
appearing in the
1080i HD format where NBC was
being broadcast digitally. Since the sixth episode of Season 7, it
has appeared in
letterbox format when in
standard definition. As a result, the U.S. DVD box set shows the
widescreen versions of the episodes, including those episodes
originally broadcast in 1.33:1 (full frame) format. The episodes
also appear in 1080i widescreen when rerun on
TNT
HD, though the first six seasons still run in full frame 1.33:1
on the digital
TNT
network. Only the live episode "Ambush" at the beginning of the
fourth season and the opening credits for the first six seasons are
in standard 4:3 aspect ratio.
Impact
Ratings
American seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per
episode) of
ER on NBC.
Note: Each U.S. network television season starts in late
September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion
of May sweeps. All times
mentioned in this section were in the Eastern and Pacific time
zones.
Season |
Season Premiere |
Season Finale |
TV Season |
Viewer
Rank (#) |
Viewers
(in millions) |
1st |
September 19, 1994 |
May 18, 1995 |
1994-1995 |
#2 |
19.08 |
2nd |
September 21, 1995 |
May 16, 1996 |
1995-1996 |
#1 |
21.09 |
3rd |
September 26, 1996 |
May 15, 1997 |
1996-1997 |
#1 |
20.56 |
4th |
September 25, 1997 |
May 14, 1998 |
1997-1998 |
#2 |
19.99 |
5th |
September 24, 1998 |
May 20, 1999 |
1998-1999 |
#1 |
17.94 |
6th |
September 30, 1999 |
May 18, 2000 |
1999-2000 |
#4 |
25.0 |
7th |
October 12, 2000 |
May 17, 2001 |
2000-2001 |
#2 |
22.4 |
8th |
September 27, 2001 |
May 16, 2002 |
2001-2002 |
#3 |
22.1 |
9th |
September 26, 2002 |
May 15, 2003 |
2002-2003 |
#4 |
20.0 |
10th |
September 25, 2003 |
May 13, 2004 |
2003-2004 |
#8 |
19.5 |
11th |
September 23, 2004 |
May 19, 2005 |
2004-2005 |
#16 |
15.5 |
12th |
September 22, 2005 |
May 18, 2006 |
2005-2006 |
#30 |
12.3 |
13th |
September 21, 2006 |
May 17, 2007 |
2006-2007 |
#31 |
11.5 |
14th |
September 27, 2007 |
May 15, 2008 |
2007-2008 |
#55 |
9.16 |
15th |
September 25, 2008 |
April 2, 2009 |
2008-2009 |
#36 |
10.3 |
- The series finale attracted 16.4 million viewers and a 6.0 demo
in the 18-49 year old age group. The show highest ratings was 47.8
million viewers and 25.8/57 in the demo.
Critical reception
Awards and nominations
The series
Distribution
Home video
Warner Home Video has released
ER on DVD in Regions 1, 2, and 4. Seasons 1-11 have been
released in R1, Seasons 1-15 in R2, and Seasons 1-13 in R4.
DVD Name |
Ep# |
Release dates |
Region 1 |
Region 2 (UK) |
Region 4 (AUS) |
ER: The Complete First Season (1994-1995) |
25 |
August 26, 2003 |
February 23, 2004 |
April 28, 2004 |
ER: The Complete Second Season (1995-1996) |
22 |
April 27, 2004 |
July 26, 2004 |
July 15, 2004 |
ER: The Complete Third Season (1996-1997) |
22 |
April 26, 2005 |
January 31, 2005 |
December 16, 2004 |
ER: The Complete Fourth Season (1997-1998) |
22 |
December 20, 2005 |
May 16, 2005 |
April 27, 2005 |
ER: The Complete Fifth Season (1998-1999) |
22 |
July 11, 2006 |
October 24, 2005 |
November 15, 2005 |
ER: The Complete Sixth Season (1999-2000) |
22 |
December 19, 2006 |
April 3, 2006 |
May 5, 2006 |
ER: The Complete Seventh Season (2000-2001) |
22 |
May 15, 2007 |
September 18, 2006 |
October 3, 2006 |
ER: The Complete Eighth Season (2001-2002) |
22 |
January 22, 2008 |
July 16, 2007 |
September 6, 2007 |
ER: The Complete Ninth Season (2002-2003) |
22 |
June 17, 2008 |
October 29, 2007 |
October 31, 2007 |
ER: The Complete Tenth Season (2003-2004) |
22 |
March 3, 2009 |
January 28, 2008 |
May 7, 2008 |
ER: The Complete Eleventh Season (2004-2005) |
22 |
July 14, 2009 |
April 21, 2008 |
May 7, 2008 |
ER: The Complete Twelfth Season (2005-2006) |
22 |
January 12, 2010 |
September 15, 2008 |
October 1, 2008 |
ER: The Complete Thirteenth Season (2006-2007) |
23 |
TBA |
November 3, 2008 |
April 29, 2009 |
ER: The Complete Fourteenth Season (2007-2008) |
19 |
TBA |
May 18, 2009 |
TBA |
ER: The Complete Fifteenth Season (2008-2009) |
22 |
TBA |
September 21, 2009 |
TBA |
The first six DVD box sets of
ER are unusual in the fact
that they are all in
anamorphic
widescreen even though these episodes were broadcast in a
standard 4:3 format. Only the live episode "Ambush" is not in the
widescreen format.
Other media
- ER soundtrack released in 1996 with various
compositions from seasons 1 and 2 episodes by Martin Davich and
James Newton Howard.
- ER video game for Windows XP and 2000 released in 2005 where the
player takes control of a character in the series and treats
patients.
References
External links