Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 2.21 “Rough Cut”

Posted on October 24, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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, St. Eligius loses a resident.

Episode 2.21 “Rough Cut”

(Dir by Eric Laneuville, originally aired on May 9th, 1984)

Bobby Caldwell and Joan Halloran decide to stop being Boston’s most boring couple by taking an impromptu trip to Paris. But then Bobby catches himself in his zipper while trying to put on his pants sans underwear and the trip is cancelled. Bobby spends the rest of the episode walking very carefully.

Fiscus agrees to pose for a story on eligible Boston bachelors and soon finds himself being photographed wearing only a bow-tie and a pair of black briefs. That’s more of Howie Mandel than I’ve ever wanted to see. Potential suitors start to call the hospital. Fiscus is excited until his discovers that they’re all men.

Dr. Wendy Armstrong commits suicide.

St. Elsewhere was a show that frequently mixed comedy and drama but it was still undeniably jarring how this episode went from Howie Mandel getting half-naked and Mark Harmon stiffly moving down a hospital corridor to Dr. Armstrong downing a bunch of pills and dying in the OR. Wendy killed herself after she was told that she would be invited back to do the second year of her residency. (The first two seasons of St. Elsewhere represented a year in the life of its characters.) Bulimic, feeling guilty about a patient who miscarried, and traumatized by her assault at the hands of Peter White, Wendy ended things.

Before Wendy’s suicide, Westphall, Auschlander, and Craig had decided to cut Morrison from the program. While Craig and Auschlander respected Morrison as a person, they felt that he was still struggling as a doctor. Seriously, Dr. Craig? You took his dead wife’s heart but you won’t find him a place at the hospital? However, with Wendy dead, Morrison is invited to take her spot. Morrison accepts. So, I guess that worked out for him.

To the surprise of no one, Dr. White is also cut from the program. He loudly announces that he’s going to sue for his right to continue as a resident. “I’ll be back,” he shouts, sounding like Warren Stacy at the end of 10 To Midnight. Remember how that turned out?

10 To Midnight (1983, dir by J. Lee Thompson, DP: Adam Greenberg)

This was a good episode. Even though I never really cared much for Wendy’s character, her death was still handled well and it was emotionally effecting. Next week, the second season of St. Elsewhere comes to a close.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 2.20 “Cramming”

Posted on October 17, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Peter White goes on trial.

Episode 2.20 “Cramming”

(Dir by Tim Matheson, originally aired on May 2nd, 1984)

Dr. Peter White finally goes on trial, charged with raping Kathy Martin and assaulting Wendy Armstrong. For his attorney, he hires the same lawyer (Conrad Janis) who previously made the case against him at his disciplinary hearing. The lawyer asks Kathy Martin about her own reputation at St. Eligius. (“How many times have you had sex in the morgue?”) Peter himself manages to pass a lie detector test. (Sociopaths don’t have the same physical reactions to telling a lie as normal people.) In the end, Peter is acquitted.

Shirley Daniels blames Kathy for the acquittal, saying that she should have come forward earlier. As for Wendy, she deals with the trauma by binging and then purging. When one of her patients miscarries after being admitted to the hospital, it’s determined that Wendy carelessly missed a heart murmur. When Wendy argues that she’s been under pressure due to the trial, Dr. Craig points out that Wendy missed the heart murmur before the trial even started. Wendy breaks down into tears.

I have to admit that Wendy Armstrong has never been one of my favorite characters on this show. She’s the type of doctor who most people would dread having to deal with. She knows all of the technical stuff but she has absolutely no idea how to relate to patients and she gets defensive whenever anyone disagrees with her. Even if she hadn’t been attacked by Peter White, it seems like it was inevitable that she would eventually end up overlooking something with one of her patients. That said, my heart still broke for her in this episode. One gets the feeling that she’s one bad day away from breaking.

This episode ends with all of the residents taking their National Board exams. The residents know that five of them will be cut from the program. Having been acquitted, Dr. White approaches Westphall and Auschlander and announces that he doesn’t have any hard feelings towards them and he hopes that they’ll give him a fair shot. “I’m innocent,” he lies.

Dr. Ehrlich is also nervous about his exams, cramming everything he can into his last minute study sessions. His Aunt Cherise (Louise Lasser) comes to visit and help him deal with the end of his marraige to Roberta but Ehrlich is able to dump her off on Dr. Westphall. After having an awkward dinner with the eccentric Cherise, Westphall realizes that he’s not ready to start dating again.

This episode left me reeling, to be honest. The acquittal of Peter White was a gut punch. I know he’s guilty. Everyone in the hospital knows that he’s guilty. But he’s acquitted. Kathy Martin’s name is drugged through the mud. Wendy Armstrong has gone from being determined to self-destructive. But Peter White has not only gotten away with his crimes but he’s now apparently convinced that he can go back to being a doctor at St. Eligius. And who knows? He probably can. It’s a messed up world. It was messed up in 1984 and it’s messed up today.

Next week, we’ll find out which residents made the cut!

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 2.18 “Equinox”

Posted on October 3, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Peter White returns to the hospital.

Episode 2.18 “Equinox”

(Dir by David Anspaugh, originally aired on March 14th, 1984)

A college student (Thomas Byrd) comes in after taking a hit to the groin during a touch football game. It turns out that he might have testicular cancer and it falls to Dr. Cavanero to let him know that he will soon be down a ball.

Dr. Chandler is upset when his new girlfriend prefers to hang out with Luther. Chandler accuses Luther of “shuckin’ and jivin’.” Chandler’s girlfriend dumps him for being “mean.” In a well-acted scene, Chandler talks to Morrison about how he’s expected to act one way as a black man and another way as a black doctor.

Fiscus makes the mistake of giving Elliott Axlerod (Stephen Furst) his lucky baseball cap. Axelrod spills a urine sample on it and then accidentally sets the hat on fire while attempting to dry it. Axlerod is having a terrible day until a man dressed like Paul Revere brings his horse into the ER for treatment. It turns out that Axlerod’s father was veterinarian. Axlerod cures the horse but he still has to get Fiscus a new hat.

Finally, Dr. White returns. His charges have been reduced from attempted rape to assault. Wendy Armstrong is not happy and starts to binge eat. (And yet, as several nurses point out, she doesn’t gain a pound. We all know what that means….) When Kathy Martin sees Peter in the cafeteria, she yells that he raped her. “You’re crazy,” Peter lies.

The episode ends with Dr. Chandler going for a run outside, stopping, and screaming into the air.

This episode was a bit uneven. The Axlerod story worked because of the likability of Stephen Furst and not because the story itself was particularly clever. The Philip Chandler/Jack Morrison conversation was the highlight of the episode, though the ending with Chandler screaming into the void was a bit overdone.

As for Dr. White, I’ve reached the point where I can’t even stand to look at him and I feel foolish for having any sympathy for him earlier in the season. Hopefully, this season will end with Dr. White going to prison for life because I’m not sure how many more episodes I can handle of him wandering around the hospital with that smug look on his face.

Seriously, St. Elsewhere, take care of this guy soon….

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 2.17 “Vanity”

Posted on September 26, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week’s episode was available on neither Hulu nor Prime. I had to watch a really terrible upload that I found on Daily Motion. Bleh.

Episode 2.17 “Vanity”

(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on March 7th, 1984)

I was relieved to see that this episode featured Kathy Martin returning to the hospital. I was seriously worried that Peter White had killed her. With Peter in jail for attacking Wendy Armstrong, Kathy doesn’t tell anyone that Peter raped her. From the minute we first see her, it’s clear that Kathy is suffering from severe PTSD. As a character, Kathy Martin was not always treated well by this show. During the first season, she was often portrayed as being a caricature, the quirky pathologist who liked to have sex in strange places. This episode finally allowed Kathy to emerge as a fully-developed character and Barbara Whinnery gave a strong performance in the role.

Peter is in jail. Despite Wendy’s anger, Dr. Morrison regularly visits him. Morrison says that Peter is obviously sick and needs help but, at the same time, he hasn’t accepted that Peter is also the Ski Mask Rapist. (Peter wasn’t wearing his mask when he attacked Wendy.) As for Peter, he continues to feel sorry for himself.

Dr. Craig is upset when he receives a cop of the documentary about him and he discovers that he comes across like an arrogant martinet. Dr. Craig threatens to sue the director (played, again, by Michael Richards) though one gets the feeling that Craig is mainly angry because he knows the documentary is true.

Nurse Rosenthal gets reconstructive breast surgery. Joseph, the construction worker who has been having attacks of blindness, is successfully operated on. Sometimes, things work out well at the hospital. Not often, but sometimes.

Finally. Mr. Entertainment (Austin Pendleton) returns, singing to patients and upsetting his supervisor. (Mr. Entertainment now works as a janitor at the hospital.) To be honest, the majority of this episode was devoted to Mr. Entertainment and it was a bit too much. Austin Pendleton is a good actor but Mr. Entertainment is such a cartoonish character that I mentally checked out of his story.

This was an odd episode. There was a lot to work but it was almost all overshadowed by Mr. Entertainment. Sometimes, you can tell a writer has fallen so in love with a minor character that they’ve forgotten about what the audience is actually interested in. The episode felt like an example of that.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 2.16 “After Dark”

Posted on September 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, it’s time to name the Doctor of the Year!

Episode 2.16 “After Dark”

(Dir by Eric Laneuville, originally aired on February 29th, 1984)

It’s time for the annual end-of-the-year dinner, during which the Women’s Auxiliary will announce their pick for Doctor of the Year. Last year, to Dr. Craig’s shock, Westphall won the award. This year, Dr. Craig is sure that he’s going to win. Even though Craig says that he doesn’t care about awards, he still has his wife, Ellen (Bonnie Bartlett), write out a speech for him.

The dinner is just as boring as usual. The majority of the doctors who show up mention that their spouse couldn’t make it because they suddenly came down with the flu. When it is time to announce the Doctor of the Year, Dr. Craig prepares to accept the award. However, the award is given — for the second year in a row — to Dr. Westphall!

Seriously? I mean, what the Heck? Nothing against Dr. Westphall but what exactly has he done to deserve the award this year? Dr. Auschlander has continued to see patients while battling cancer. Dr. Craig performed a heart transplant! Meanwhile, Dr. Westphall has dealt with the administrative stuff and been kind of grumpy. I’m totally on Dr. Craig’s side here. There’s no way Westphall deserved that award for two years running.

Westphall, himself, had to leave the awards dinner early because of an emergency at the hospital. (More on that below.) Dr. Craig accepts the award in Westphall’s place and — surprise! — gives a sincere speech about how much he appreciates Dr. Westphall’s leadership. Good for Dr. Craig! That said, there’s no way Dr. Westphall deserved the award this year.

Meanwhile, Kathy Martin, who we last saw being raped by Peter White in the morgue, is missing. Peter wanders through the hospital in a narcotic-induced haze, carrying his ski mask in his pocket. He nearly attacks Shirley. He does attack Wendy Armstrong and this time, he doesn’t even put on his ski mask. Fortunately, Fiscus hears Wendy’s screams and knocks Peter out with a fire extinguisher. Peter is taken away by the police while Westphall heads to Peter’s home to tell Peter’s wife that her husband is the Ski Mask Rapist.

Victor is thinking of getting divorced. Bobby, on the other hand, decides to ask Joan to marry him. And Dr. Morrison continues to get too involved with his patients. When Joseph (Dan Hedaya), a construction worker dealing with random bouts of blindness, is told that he’ll have to quite job, Morrison calls out a fellow doctor being callous. Good for Morrison!

The episode, a well-acted one that deftly mixed drama and comedy, ended with some unanswered questions. Peter’s been arrested. Is he gone for good? And where is Kathy Martin? And seriously, how did Dr. Westphall win that award!?

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 2.15 “Attack”

Posted on September 12, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the identity of the Ski Mask Rapist is revealed.

Episode 2.15 “Attack”

(Dir by Kevin Hooks, originally aired on February 22nd, 1984)

The Ski Mask Rapist is continuing to attack. Off-screen, a pharmacist is assaulted while trying to catch her train. In the hospital, a candy striper gets lost in the cavernous building and is attacked in a storage room. When Shirley Daniels enters the storage room, she’s startled by a man wearing a pest control outfit. She sprays him with her mace but is later told that the police do not believe that he was the rapist. Instead, he was just a man trying to steal drugs. When Fiscus tries to put together a list of men who will walk the women to their cars, Dr. Cavanero tells him that one of the men on his list could very well be the rapist.

Amongst themselves, the women who work at St. Eligius debate what they would do if they are attacked. Shirley carries her mace. Wendy says that she would use her keys as a weapon. Jacqueline Wade says that women who don’t struggle and just submit have a better chance of surviving. Dr. Cavanero dumps her insensitive boyfriend after he offers up a half-hearted, insincere apology for trying to force himself on her during the previous episode. The head of the hospital’s security gives a lecture and makes the women feel like the attacks are somehow their fault. “There’s no need to get hysterical,” he says.

(Myself, I carry mace. I’m always scared that I’ll accidentally spray myself in the face with it but still, I carry it.)

Kathy Martin turns down the offer of a rape whistle, saying that carrying it would give her the aura of a victim. As the episode ends, she’s attacked in the morgue. She manages to push up the ski mask, revealing the face of …. Peter White.

It’s not really a surprise that Peter turned out to be the rapist. I suspected it was him last week. Rape may be classified as a sex crime but ultimately, it’s about power. The weakest men are rapists and there’s no man on this show who is weaker than Peter White. Before Peter attacks Kathy, we see him with a prostitute who tells him that it’s okay that he couldn’t get it up. Peter mentions that it’s his anniversary. Peter is weak and, looking back at the the moment he first appeared during the first season (begging Dr. Morrison to cover for him), it’s obvious that the series has been building up to the moment that he loses control.

There were other things that happened during this episode. Geraldine Fitzgerald played a patient who Auschlander dated in his younger days. (Now, she’s a drug addict.) Victor and Roberta returned from their honeymoon, Victor with a painful sunburn and Roberta with a host of problems that she accidentally broadcast to the entire hospital while talking to her friend in the front office. (You have to make sure the PA is turned off before talking about your sex life, folks.) There was a humorous scene in which Dr. Ridley got into an argument with Roberta’s psychiatrist (Philip Sterling). Dr. Morrison tried to figure out why his latest patient (Dan Hedaya) was suffering from sudden bouts of blindness.

In the end, though, this was a grim episode and not always an easy one for me to watch. Honestly, if I had been a nurse or a doctor at that hospital, I would have walked as soon as it became apparent that the Ski Mask Rapist was someone inside the building. I would have gone home and refused to come back until they caught the guy.

Kathy saw Peter’s face as he attacked her. I fear what’s waiting for me on next week’s episode.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 2.14 “Drama Center”

Posted on September 5, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, things get depressing.

Episode 2.14 “Drama Center”

(Dir by David Anspaugh, originally aired on February 15th, 1984)

This week’s episode opens with a disturbing scene in which a woman, trying to get her car to start on a snowy night, is attacked and raped in the parking lot of St. Eligius. The rapist is wearing a green jacket and a ski mask.

At first, I assumed that the rapist was a random lowlife, someone who would likely never be seen again. But then Dr. Cavanero’s wealthy boyfriend tried to force himself on her and I was left wondering if maybe he would be revealed as the man in the ski mask. However, towards the end of the episode, there was scene featuring Dr. Peter White. Having been banned from working in the ER and from prescribing medicine, White is now working in the morgue and, needless to say, he spends this entire episode bitching about it. As the episode ends, we see that Peter is holding a capsule in his hand, suggesting that he is once again abusing drugs. However, I also noticed that Peter was wearing the same green jacket as the man in the ski mask!

This was a good episode, well-written and well-acted. It was also pretty depressing. Dr. Westphall brings his severely autistic, noncommunicative son Tommy (Chad Allen) to St. Eligius so that Dr. Ridley can examine him. Dr. Ridley warns Westphall that Tommy is aggressive and that Westphall might not be able to continue to care for him at home, despite the fact that Westphall’s daughter (Dana Short) is planning on forgoing her dream college to stick around and help. Westphall ends his day reading Tommy a book (“Your mom bought you this book.”) and breaking down into tears and it made me cry a little too.

Meanwhile, a TV crew followed around Dr. Craig for a documentary. Needless to say, they got in the way and they got on Craig’s nerves. The director was played by Michael Richards, who, of course, is best-known for playing Kramer on Seinfeld and then having a racist meltdown when he got heckled at a comedy club. In an episode that was, emotionally, pretty dark, it was almost a relief to get some scenes of Dr. Craig losing his temper with the documentary crew. As someone who knows William Daniels best as the kindly Mr. Feeney from countless Boy Meets World reruns, it’s been a real pleasure to Daniels as the prickly and arrogant Dr. Craig. Dr. Craig wouldn’t have had much use for the Matthews clan and all of their drama.

This was an intense and sad episode. It was St. Elsewhere at its most emotional.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 2.11 “Blizzard”

Posted on August 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, it snows in Boston.

Episode 2.11 “Blizzard”

(Dir by Kevin Hooks, originally aired on January 18th, 1984)

It can’t be easy working in a hospital.

I’m thinking about this today because my aunt is currently dying. After several years of suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, my aunt is currently in a hospital, unresponsive and scheduled to move into hospice care. Presbyterian Health was the first hospice we reached out to. They don’t have any available rooms but they were willing to still admit her and send their nurses to the hospital everyday until a room opened up, One family would lose a loved one and my aunt would get a room. However, the hospital says that they need the bed that my aunt is occupying so my aunt is being sent to a different hospice. This hospice is located off the highway and it’s going to be Hell to get to. I yelled at the hospital social worker for an hour this morning. He suggested home hospice as a solution but home hospice is what I agreed to for my Dad last year and the pain from watching him die still lingers.

It’s easy to get angry at the doctors and the nurses and the hospice workers but I try not to. I’m losing my aunt, a woman who stepped up to look after me after my mom died. They’re losing one of the hundreds of patients that they deal with on a daily basis. That social worker upset me but ultimately, he was doing his job.

All of this was pressing on my mind as I watched this week’s episode of St. Elsewhere. Even though this episode was aired 41 years ago, it still felt relevant today. A patient — a nice old man named Harrison Jeffries (James McEachin) — died because a teenage girl hacked the hospital’s computer, screwed with the files for fun, and accidentally erased the fact that Harrison was allergic to Demerol. It was sad but it was also something that still happens today. People, both good and bad, go into hospitals for minor procedures and concerns and they don’t come out. Last year, my Dad went to the hospital because he was in a car accident and when I first visited him, he seemed like he was doing fine. Three months later, he died because the accident aggravated his Parkinson’s. It sucks and it hurts but that’s the way it is. Tomorrow, I could forget to pack my inhaler when I leave the house and I could die of an asthma attack. It’s not nice to think about but it could happen. That’s why you have to truly live life while you can. You never know when it might be taken away.

As for the rest of this episode, it dealt with a blizzard. The roof collapsed on Dr. Cavanero and she ended up with a broken arm. Dr. Craig tried to drive to the hospital and, after his car stalled, nearly died walking through the snow. (Vijay was able to warm up Craig’s feet by placing them on his stomach. Craig was not happy.) Victor struggled with his love for Roberta. Dr. Armstrong snapped at people. Jack Morrison was depressed. Even with this blizzard, it was really just another day at St. Eligius.

St. Elsewhere is frequently downbeat show but that makes sense. When you think about, no one ever gets a happy ending.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 2.10 “A Pig Too Far”

Posted on August 8, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, we learn about something called hacking.

Episode 2.10 “A Pig Too Far”

(Dir by Linda Day, originally aired on January 11th, 1984)

I’ve got a family thing going on today so I’m just going to do a bullet-point review.

The bigger, richer hospitals are transporting their indigent patients to St. Eligius. When one of those patients dies, Joan Holloran and Dr. Cavanero (making one of her infrequent appearances) attempt to find out why. It turns out that other hospitals view St. Eligius as being a dumping ground. It’s not ethical or particularly nice but everyone seems to agree that it’s a common practice.
Ehrlich wants to ask Roberta (Jean Bruce Scott) to marry him, despite the fact that he’s extremely immature and has no idea how to have a meaningful relationship with anyone.
Matthew Brody (David Knell) is a teenage computer nerd who, from his hospital bed, is able to hack into the hospital’s computer system. You can tell this episode was from the 80s because of a lengthy scene in which Matthew explains what hacking is. Everyone is stunned that such a thing can be done.
Bobby shaves his mustache. Now he looks like the handsome Mark Harmon we all know!
A woman with violent mood swings is brought into the psych ward. Dr. Ridley diagnoses her as having PMS. He and Dr. Morrison have a good laugh about it while this reviewer narrows her eyes and considers throwing her laptop out the bedroom window.
Shirley and Dr. White are still under investigation. What’s odd is that Shirley says that she’s currently not allowed in the ER but actually, we saw her working in the ER in the previous episode. That leads me to suspect that the episodes were aired out of their extended order.
EXCEPT — last week’s episode was a Christmas episode. This week’s episode features a somewhat random scene of Dr. Craig demanding someone take down a Christmas tree because Christmas is over. So maybe Shirley being in the ER last week was genuine mistake on the part of the writers.

This was a bit of a bland episode, to be honest. At this point, I assume anyone who shows up in the hospital is guaranteed to eventually die a terrible death.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 2.9 “AIDS and Comfort”

Posted on August 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, St. Elsewhere makes history.

Episode 2.9 “AIDS and Comfort”

(Dir by Victor Lobl, originally aired on December 21st, 1983)

A city councilman named Anthony Gifford (Michael Brandon) has checked into St. Eligius under an assumed name. He’s complaining about fatigue. His lymph nodes are swollen. His immune system seems to be shutting down. Dr. White and Dr. Westphall look at the man’s x-rays and Dr. White says that it looks like Gifford might be suffering from a newly discovered disease that no one knows much about. The name of that disease is AIDS.

“Could he be …. gay?” Dr. White asks.

Westphall initially scoffs. He points out that Gifford is married and has two children. When Gifford is asked directly about his personal life, he admits to having affairs but is quick to say that they were all with women. Westphall later says that Gifford is either lying or they’ve discovered something entirely new about the virus and they need to call the CDC….

Today, with all we know about HIV and AIDS, it’s a bit jarring to hear some of the dialogue in this episode. Doing some research, I discovered that this was the first ever episode of network television to deal with the AIDS epidemic and that it aired at a time when there were still a lot of unanswered questions about how the disease was spread. (For instance, the episode aired shortly after the HIV virus has been discovered.)

When words get out that Gifford is a patient at the hospital and that he has AIDS, panic erupts. No one donates to the hospital’s blood drive because they’re scared the needles have somehow gotten infected. Even usually sympathetic characters — like Luther and Dr. Fiscus — refuse to be anywhere near the isolation ward. Gifford’s doctor, Peter White, requests that Gifford’s case be given to another doctor. Later, White asks everyone is Westphall is mad at him. Morrison replies that White acted unethically. White blames his wife and her fears of him contracting the disease by being in the same room as Gifford. (Not surprisingly, White is also the one who, because he won’t stop whining about his job, is responsible for word spreading about Gifford having AIDS.)

After spending nearly the entire episode denying it, Gifford finally admits to having had affairs with other men. As he leaves the isolation ward, he’s besieged by reporters. Getting in the elevator, he sees that someone has spray-painted “AIDS” on the wall. Before he leaves, he asks Westphall how long he has. Westphall grimly replies that most AIDS patients die within two years.

Later, while talking to Dr. Craig and Nurse Rosenthal, Westphall says, “Yeah, I know that’s how I felt about it at first. Then I started to think, Who am I? Why should any of us be penalized, fatally, for choosing a certain lifestyle, especially when you realize that it all boils down to chance anyway? And I tell you something I don’t give a damn for all this talk about morality and vengeful gods and all that. If you have AIDS, you’re sick, you need help. That’s all that matters. And that’s why we’re here, right?”

And yes, it’s a bit jarring to hear Westphall refer to being a gay as a “choosing a certain lifestyle,” but you again you have to consider when this episode aired and that it was also the first network television show to feature a storyline about AIDS. When this episode aired, saying that “If you have AIDS, you’re sick, you need help …. that’s all that matters,” took a certain amount of courage. For many viewers, this episode was probably the first they ever really heard about AIDS.

This episode dealt very honestly with AIDS. It actually helped that all of the character didn’t have the type of “perfect” reaction that television shows often present characters as having. Even Dr. Westphall, usually presented as being this show’s beacon of moral clarity, had to deal with his own prejudices. When it comes to a controversial topic, television shows too often portray their lead characters as being saints. This episode portrayed the staff of St. Elsewhere as being flawed and imperfect and, as such, it was a very effective and thought-provoking hour.