Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988.  The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!

This week, Victor gets married!

Episode 2.13 “In Sickness and In Health”

(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on February 8th, 1984)

This week’s episode features three storylines.

The least interesting one features Joan Halloran’s father, Charlie Halloran (William Windom), being admitted to and eventually dying at St. Eligius.  The entire Halloran family comes out to visit Charlie and this is one of the storylines that would have worked better if I had the slightest bit of interest in Joan or her family.  For the most part, though, Joan is a boring character and her wealthy family is not that interesting.  I got the feeling this storyline was mostly included to remind us that Joan is a character on the show.  We really have seen much of her over the past few episodes.

Dr. Chandler trained for the Boston Marathon by running the route in the rain.  A car ran him off the road.  A dog chased him.  An attractive woman flirted with him.  (He is Denzel Washington, after all!)   And he finally reached the finish line and nearly collapsed while imagining everyone cheering for him.

Finally, Ehrlich married Roberta.  The wedding took place at Dr. Craig’s house.  Dogger (Kevin Scannell) was the best man and turned out to be just as crude as you might expect someone named Dogger to be.  Dr. Craig was disgusted by the whole thing.  Roberta got cold feet after her mother confessed to having never loved her father.  However, Dr. Craig’s abrasive mother-in-law (Lurene Tuttle) was there to order Roberta to take a chance and marry the man who she might eventually come to love.  This marriage is so obviously doomed.  I’m predicting Ehrlich will be divorced before the season ends.

This episode really didn’t work.  Dr. Chandler training for the Boston Marathon finally gave Denzel Washington something to do but the storyline excuse was mostly just an excuse to do some Boston location shooting.  The Halloran storyline didn’t work because the Hallorans themselves aren’t that interesting.  And, after all the build-up, the wedding was a bit anti-climatic.

They can’t all be winners.