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 Daily Motion.

This week, we learn why almost all of Morrison’s patients seem to die.

Episode 3.14 “Whistle, Wyler Works”

(Dir by David Anspaugh, originally aired on January 2nd, 1985)

It’s another busy day at St. Eligius.

• Having finally found a kidney donor, Dr. Westphall performs the transplant.  Tshalla (Larry B. Scott) gets a new kidney but Dr. Wyler is shaken to discover that, while he’s been working in Africa, surgical techniques in America have progressed to the point that Wyler now feels undertrained.
• Having managed to alienate even the super patient Dr. Morrison, Mrs. Hufnagle is now working her “charm” on Bobby Caldwell.  Caldwell tells Hufnagle that she doesn’t really need plastic surgery but Hufnagle seems to really want it.
• Victor freaks out when he’s not included to assist in Dr. Craig’s latest big surgery.  A chance meeting with Ellen Craig leads to Victor confessing that his father died when he was young and that he’s always been looking for a new father figure.
• Ellen snaps at Mark for not understand how much Victor looks up at him.  Yay!  I always like it when Ellen stands up to Mark.  That Bonnie Bartlett and William Daniels were (and are) married in real life always adds an extra snap to these scenes.
• Elliott appears to have a crush on one of Nurse Rosenthal’s daughters.  There’s no way that’s going to end well.
• Dr. Chandler returns from vacation (in reality, Denzel Washington was probably busy filming a movie) and deals with a patient (Jay Tarses) who is also a bigamist.
• When the representative of a fly-by night medical school approaches Luther and tries to get him to enroll, Auschlander kicks the smarmy representative out of the hospital.  Before the rep leaves, he mentions that St. Eligius already has at least one of his school’s graduates on staff.
• Yep, it’s Jack Morrison.

It’s already been established that Jack got his medical degree from a Mexican medical school.  In this episode, it’s further established that, whereas most doctors spends years in medical school, Jack graduated after six months.  Jack explains that he still passed all of the tests that he was required to take but that he was also given credit for his life experience of working as a pharmaceutical rep.

Dr. Westphall is not amused.  If someone could learn how to be a doctor that quickly, Westphall says, wouldn’t we all being doing it?  Westphall points out that he put his reputation on the line to keep Jack around as a second-year resident.  Westphall also says that this explains why Jack always seems to be misdiagnosing his patients and …. well, I think Westphall has a point!

This was not a bad episode, though I’m a bit weary of this Dr. Wyler storyline.  Wyler doesn’t do much other than feel sorry for himself.  I’m far more interested to see where things will be going with both Victor and Jack.