Is anyone else still watching this show? I liked Dubenko's shout out to Heroes. "Save the cheerleader, save the world"

I don't think I'll ever stop watching. It's actually good this year (and I watched seasons 9, 10 and 11 when it soo wasn't) and frankly, my body is set to watch ER at 10 on Thursday nights, it just is. The show has been on for half my life (God that's scary), I'm hooked. I liked the Heroes shout-out, I loved the mini-NewsRadio reunion, and the fucked up "twist" at the end wasn't entirely unexpected, but was still pretty cool.

I haven't watched any of the episodes this season. A few times I have taken a break from this show for a year or so and then started watching again, but I think I'm done for good.

I have been watching my Season One dvds recently though and I had almost forgotten how much I loved that first season. I miss so many of the characters and their interactions with one another. Dr. Benton and Carter, Dr. Benton and his mother, Susan and Mark, Susan and her sister, Doug and Carol, etc. In the past few years there hasn't been any relationship that I have cared about. It certainly isn't Luka and Abby.

And years later the first season episode where Mark has to deliver a baby in the ER and the mother eventually dies is still as heart wrenching as it was the first time I saw it. I'm not a Bradley Whitford fan but my heart really did break as I watched Mark tell him that his wife died. I'm glad the show went with just the visual of Mark confronting the father and the audience didn't get to hear exactly what was being said.

I can't believe this show has been on for 13 seasons. I feel so old.

Yeah, "Love's Labor Lost" is one of the best hours of television I have ever seen. I've been watching the series since the pilot (I actually remember watching the two-hour pilot preview on a Monday, the show then premiered that Thursday), and though I've taken breaks here and there - I always manage to come back. It really is kind of sad to see the progression the show has gone through - though they remained truly high quality all the way through season 6. It really wasn't until Mark's Never Ending Brain Tumor that I started really getting frustrated with the show. Still, although this season has had some dud moments, I've overall been really happy with it -- and actually the second half of last season started ER on the best tick they've had since probably season 8. I think with any show that is on for THIS long and that started out with such stunning quality (I actually wrote a college paper on the ER pilot and its then ground-breaking usage of steady-cam, quick cuts (which Homicide used, but in a different way) and long tracking shots and made the argument that ER was the first show to truly go toe-to-toe with feature films in terms of cinematography and editing techniques) is bound to deteriorate - and no, the show is not the same show it was in the beginning - but I still get enjoyment out of it.

I do love the Season 1 DVD set -- the bonus features are really interesting/informative. I realize they can only include so-man features, but I'm disappointed that starting with season 4, they stopped including commentary tracks. I don't know if that's because they release the sets in Region 2 first and then bring them out in the US (and American series that debut on DVD in the UK first usually lack extra features) and just port the shit over for time - or if they just don't have it in the budget now that the sets come out at a lower price point ($30 as opposed to $60 or $65 when ER first came out on DVD), but I miss the extras.

It's unfortunately becoming a bit of a trend now for most shows to come out with some nice special features for the earlier seasons and then have little or nothing as bonus material for the later seasons. I don't know if its a cost thing or the studios just figure that the fans that are likely to purchase more than one season will do so no matter what extras are included. At least ER will most likely have all their seasons out on dvd. I own a few shows on dvd where only the first season has been released with little to no chance of future seasons coming out due to poor sales.

I got a really great deal on ER Season One. Around Christmas, Amazon had a sale on quite a few tv shows on dvd. I picked up ER Season One, Without a Trace Season One and Night Court Season One for less than 9 dollars each.

How many more seasons are they contracted for? Now that Noah Wylie is off (he is, right? I don't watch anymore, but I hear he is gone.) the show can end, can't it? I thought there was some sort of clause about the original characters being gone and then the show can end...but is Sherry Stringfield still there?

Whew, I feel like such a Negative Nancy. I feel as though they beat this show into the ground, and I have no business saying this, because I didn't watch this season. I hear it has improved. You even say that upthread. Every once in a while, I will catch an old episode on TNT from season one or two. It sends me into this analysis of what it was, and then what it became every time. In 1994, it was not a soap opera about doctors and nurses, I think. (This is how I started to view it when I stopped watching.) There was drama, of course What is going to happen with Mark and Jennifer's relationship? Is Carol going to work through her issues? Everybody had things going on, that's how life works, and everyone needs a struggle of some sort. Not every struggle needs to be a central storyline.

Then, they focused so much more, I think, on the relationships between the staff and their patients versus simply the interstaff relationships. I don't mean romantic relationships either, which is probably evident. (As I write this, I'm coming up with all kinds of examples that negate my argument. Bah.) I know it's a result of having different writers come in as seasons go on. I imagine John Wells wrote a good number of the first several seasons. Michael Crichton, too. I don't even know if Michael Chrichton still writes, but I know that when John Wells wrote that Breakfast Club episode it was a Big Deal, and a lot of character development happened in a short period of time.

I started watching in 1994, and I was in high school. It was the first real drama that I watched and followed that wasn't something that my parents watched. Religiously, every Thursday night in high school I watched ER. George Clooney left just before I went to college, so when I didn't catch every episode, I wasn't too upset. I watched on and off for a while. Then...oh, what's this? Sexy Croatian accent? Why, yes please! Still, I was never able to get back into ER the way I was for the first, well, three years. Season four isn't as strong as the first three. I watched seasons eight and nine, and have caught it here and there since then.

So there you have it. A great argument for...nothing! Can anyone who has watched more consistently than I contrast now versus then better than that? (A request for help, not a challenge!)

I am loving Tucci on ER. I have a feeling he doesn't stick around for long, though, he's still in the "Guest Star" credits. (Of course, so is Leland Orser, and he's one of my favorites.)

EW. EW. EW. Okay, I love Tucci, but he needs to keep his clothes on. And certainly he needs to not have sex with the rest of the cast. EW.

Really? I found him surprisingly hot. But then my husband is bald and furry too, so I guess I'm biased.
But I agree with the no more having sex with the cast thing. Poor Abby.

I didn't mind his nudeness in Midsummer's Night Dream. I think it was mostly just the combination of his character and his character sleeping with Abby OMG WTF.

For about five seconds I was really, really hoping Abby went home with some random guy and not Moretti. I don't know why the idea of her cheating on Luka with a nameless extra is more acceptable to me.

I sort of saw it coming when the lights went out in the bar, but I was really hoping they wouldn't go there.
It upset me too - it's pretty sleazy for him to sleep with a drunken underling, let alone one who is married and has a young child. I know Abby's an adult and is responsible for her choices, but he seemed relatively sober and I think he could have stopped it. I had liked his character even though he was a jerk so it's kind of disappointing.

Yeah, I agree. He took advantage of her and I fear I'm no longer going to enjoy the character.

I'm with ladybird in that I found Tucci incredibly hot. I loved him in the short-lived 3 Lbs.. I didn't find his character sleeping with Abby too out of character for him (I agree with Abby that he's been flirting with her almost from day one) and we didn't see enough in the bar to see just exactly how drunk he was, who initiated, etc. I thought Abby's anguish as she realized just what she had done was very well played by MT.