Ken Magee | Through the Shattered Lens

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!

Another day, another death in Boston.

Episode 1.17 “Brothers”

(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on March 15th, 1983)

I swear, St. Eligius must have the worst security guards in Boston.

In this episode, Walter Schaefer (Pat Hingle), a blue collar fisherman, manages to smuggle a freaking hunting rifle into the hospital so that he can use it to kill his brother, Arthur (Richard Hamilton). Arthur was dying of cancer and didn’t have much time left. Walter had previously begged Dr. Westphall to cease giving Arthur chemotherapy and to just let his misery come to an end. Westphall declined to do so so Walter killed his brother. The episode was designed to make the viewer feel that Walter had no choice but …. eh, I don’t know. I’m not a fan of euthanasia and I find the enthusiasm for it in television and film to be a bit icky. This episode’s treatment of the issue was about as heavy-handed as they come. And seriously, couldn’t Walter have just smothered Arthur with a pillow or something? Shooting a man is dramatic but now I’m wondering about who had to clean up the room afterwards. Plus. Arthur was hooked up to a bunch of medical equipment that was probably ruined as well.

(I don’t know, it’s hard for me to judge this storyline. My Dad died in hospice care and I had to sign a DNR order before he could start it. The aggressiveness that those people showed in demanding that I sign the order still haunts me.)

On a lighter note, Ehrlich managed to get another date with Shirley, despite the fact that their previous date ended with Ehrlich drunk and making a fool of himself. Fiscus recommended a nice romantic restaurant. Of course, when Ehrlich couldn’t make the date due to his work as a doctor, Fiscus took Shirley to the restaurant. The end result is that Shirley has a crush on Fiscus and Fiscus needs to find a new place to stay because Ehrlich responded by kicking him out of the apartment.

Speaking of relationships, Dr. White is such a sleaze! He’s separated from his wife so he’s now involved with a nurse. While talking to that nurse on the phone, White was flirting with another nurse. But then, Dr. White happened to see his wife out with another man and decided he had the right to get all jealous. Ugh! What a jerk!

Finally, the episode ended with Nurse Rosenthal on the operating table, about to undergo a mastectomy. This was the subplot that actually got to me, not all of the stuff about Walter murdering his brother. Christina Pickles, who has been such a steady presence during the first season, gave a wonderful performance as Rosenthal tried to keep it together as the day of her surgery approached. This storyline brought tears to my eyes and that’s really all I have to say about it.

This was an uneven episode. The stuff with the brothers didn’t do much for me but, when the episode just focused on the doctors and the nurses, it shined.

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing So Here’s What Happened, which aired on CBS in 2006. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

The first and only episode of this show has one message for all the mooks out there. And that message is …. NEW YORK, BABY!

Episode 1.1 “Pilot”

(Dir by Michael Lembeck, aired on May 1st, 2006)

What to say about Vince Brophy (Bobby Cannavale)? Hey, he’s a New Yorker, you know what I mean? Hey, he starts every sentence by saying, “Hey,” y’know? He knows the name of every single athlete who ever played for a New York sports team, y’know? He meets a woman named Rochelle Jeter (Rashida Jones) and immediately asks her if she’s related to Derek Jeter, you know what I’m saying? She says, “Yeah,” and she’s being sarcastic but Vince thinks that she’s being serious because who in their right mind would come into the old neighborhood and make a sarcastic joke, y’know?

Vince is such a New Yorker that he narrates the entire episode while sitting in his favorite barber chair. His barber (Hector Elizondo) hangs on his every word, which is good since he presumably can’t see the flashbacks that the audience is forced to sit through. Vince works at his family’s car lot and he wears solid suits and pinky rings and the pilot finds several excuses for him to say the word “Escalade.” He’s not smart but he’s a stand-up guy, that Vince. His co-worker asks him to be the godfather to his newborn and Vince agrees but then he nearly drowns the kid at the christening because he gets distracted when someone tells him that Derek Jeter don’t have no sister named Rochelle. What a New Yorker!, y’know what I’m saying?

There’s a lot of talented people in this show. Rashida Jones was months away from appearing on The Office. Hector Elizondo is a comedy veteran. Steve Park, a favorite of the Coen Brothers, appeared as Vince’s boss. Mercedes Ruehl plays Vince’s mother. And then you’ve got Bobby Cannavale in the lead role. Cannavale is one of my favorite actors, a guy who is as good at playing sensitive as he is at playing tough. Cannavale can play drama and he can play comedy and he’s easy on the eyes. Unfortunately, all of these talented people were let down by a script that was written by none other than Paul Reiser.

The main problem with the show is that none of the characters have much of a personality beyond being from New York. Obviously, New Yorkers are a unique group of people but every New Yorker I’ve met has also had their own individual personality to go along with their identity of being a citizen of America’s largest city. The characters in this episode, on the other hand, have no identity beyond being a New Yorker in the most cliched ways possible. Even worse, none of the jokes are particularly funny. Vince crosses the line from being amiably dumb to being a buffoon far too quickly.

Perhaps not surprisingly, this was the only episode of this show. The pilot did not lead to a series. Fortunately, everyone involved went on to better things, y’know?