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, Peter’s in trouble …. again!
Episode 2.7 “Entrapment”
(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on December 7th, 1983)
Oh, that Peter White! Always in trouble for something!
This week, a woman comes into the Emergency Room with her baby and begs for some Seconal, just to help her get some sleep. Peter says that Seconal might be too powerful a drug but he’s moved by the woman’s pleas. Finally, he gives her the drugs. The next morning, Dr. Craig and Dr. Westphall get a call. The woman was an undercover cop and now, Dr. White — a recovering drug addict himself — is under investigation.
Both Dr. Craig and Dr. Auschlander think that the solution is to just kick Peter out of the hospital. Westphall disagrees, saying that Peter has come a long way since he completed rehab. Westphall promises Peter that he and Auschlander will support him when his hearing comes up.
As for Dr. Craig, he finally found out that his secret admirer was Kathy Martin. This led to Ellen Craig (played by Bonnie Bartlett, William Daniels’s real-life wife) heading down to the morgue and politely telling Kathy to stay away from her man before then mentioning that, if politeness hadn’t worked, she was prepared to beat Kathy up. I love Ellen. She’s one of the best characters on the show.
Meanwhile, Irish kid Eddie Carson (Eric Stoltz), who was admitted to the hospital last week, is upset because he’s going to have a big ugly scar on his face. He’ll probably be even more upset when he discovers that a rival Irish teenager (a protestant, naturally) planted a bomb in his family’s restaurant and blew up his parents.
This was an okay episode. The highlight was definitely Ellen confronting Kathy Martin. As for the other storylines, Eddie Carson’s story felt a bit contrived while Peter White’s story was just getting started. I assume the hearing will be next week. It’s interesting to see Peter as the victim for once. Usually, it’s his own stupidity that screws things up for him. This week, he really was unfairly targeted.
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, the hospital staff is under pressure!
Episode 2.6 “Under Pressure”
(Dir by David Anspaugh, originally aired on November 30th, 1983)
What a depressing episode!
It’s another day at St. Eligius and almost everyone seems to be in a bad mood. Patients are complaining that Dr. Craig is so obsessed with his heart transplant that he’s ignoring them. Dr. Westphall wakes up in a bad mood and continue to be in a bad mood for the entire episode. Dr. Morrison is upset because he’s treating two Irish teens who nearly killed each other because one is Protestant and the other is Catholic. (One of the teens is played by a young Eric Stoltz.) Bobby Caldwell has to figure out how to put together the face of one of the Irish boys. Ehrlich is complaining nonstop. Morrison is missing his wife. Auschlander is dealing with his approaching mortality. (There’s a wonderful moment when Norman Lloyd rolls his eyes while Auschlander listens to Westphall whine.)
Finally, a man calling himself Mr. Entertainment (Austin Pendleton) took over one of the hospital’s elevators and sang to the patients. That cheered some people up. It would have annoyed the Hell out of me. Mr. Entertainment is checked into the psych ward, where he meets the new head psychiatrist, Michael Ridley (Paul Sand). (Hugh Beale apparently no longer works at the hospital. Both he and Dr. Samuels were dropped after the first season, with no onscreen explanation.) The episode ends with Mr. Entertainment singing for a collection of nurses and doctors and bringing some happiness to their lives.
Everyone in this episode is under pressure. That’s fine. That’s realistic. Being a doctor cannot be an easy job. But it just made for a rather melancholy episode and I have to admit that I couldn’t wait for the end credits and that meowing cat.
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. Elsewhere observes a holiday.
Episode 2.5 “A Wing and a Prayer”
(Dir by Bruce Paltrow, originally aired on November 23rd, 1983)
It’s Thanksgiving in Boston! While everyone else is watching the Patriots and celebrating with family, 15 residents are stuck at St. Eligius, working during the holiday. To make it even worse for them, Dr. Craig puts himself on the schedule to teach them a lesson about what it means to be a doctor. (It’s also subtly suggested that Craig is looking for an excuse to get out of visiting his in-laws.) When Craig learns that Ehrlich is planning on make a “California-style” turkey, Craig insists on making a turkey of his own.
Meanwhile, Dr. Auschlander is reading a book on “dying with dignity.” It’s a British book, one that makes the case for euthanasia. (Anglicans are so pessimistic!) Auschlander is convinced that this will be his last Thanksgiving. He becomes obsessed with the case of Joe Dempsey (Cory Yothers), a little boy who might have Hepatitis or who could just as easily be suffering from Leukemia. Neither option is great but Joe can recover from Hepatitis. Death-obsessed Auschlander spends the entire episode convincing himself that Joe is going to die. Fortunately, Auschlander is wrong. When the test results come back, it turns out that Joe does have Hepatitis. Auschlander’s hope is renewed. He tosses away his assisted suicide book. He tells his wife he’s looking forward to next Thanksgiving. It’s kind of predictable but Norman Lloyd’s performance sells it.
Did I cry during this episode? Yes, I did. Last year, at this time, I was fighting with an insurance company to keep my dad from getting kicked out of his rehab center. I knew, deep in my heart, that if he was sent home, he would die. The insurance company wanted to kick him out on the 4th of July. I successfully appealed their decision, just as I would appeal several more of their decisions. I won countless battles and I felt pretty proud of myself but ultimately, I lost the war. My Dad was eventually evicted from the rehab center and, as I feared would happen, he died a few weeks later. Every holiday since August of last year has been my first without my Dad. So, yeah, when I watched an episode of a hospital drama with Dr. Asuchlander obsessing on death while Dr. Morrison experienced his first holiday since the passing of his wife …. you better believe I cried.
Can I fairly judge this episode, all things considered? Probably not. Watching it, I could tell that this episode was shamelessly manipulative and there were a few moments that were a bit overwritten. There wasn’t much subtlety to be found. But, dammit, it got to me. The emotions got to me. It earned my tears and, to be honest, I felt a little better after I cried. Joe Dempsey’s going to live. Yay!
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, things get dark.
Episode 2.3 “Newheart”
(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on November 9th, 1983)
What a depressing episode!
It doesn’t start out on a particularly depressing note. It opens with a bachelor part for Dr. Vijay Kochar, who is about marry a woman that he’s never actually met. (It’s an arranged marriage.) The bachelor party, which appears to have been held in Fiscus’s apartment, is a bust. Dr. White shows up with a sex doll. Victor Ehrlich shows up with a short film called “Sally Takes a Ride,” which turns out to be not the pornography he was expecting but instead, a short film about astronaut Sally Ride. Vijay mentions that he’s a virgin and soon, with the help Dr. White and Nurse Daniels, the news is all over the hospital. Kathy Martin decides to give Vijay an early wedding gift by having sex with him.
Since this episode aired in 1983, there’s a random aerobic class being held in the hospital, which leads to a lengthy scene of spandex and dancing. It’s a bit of a silly scene for what was, for the first half hour, shaping up to be a silly episode.
Fran and Jerry Singleton finally check out of the hospital. Fran has regained the ability to speak and can stiffly walk. Jerry has learned to stop being such an overbearing jerk. Dr. Morrison is not there to say goodbye to the Singletons because….
…. and here’s where things start to get dark….
….his wife is in another hospital! Jack Morrison’s wife has an offscreen cerebral hemorrhage and, as evidenced by Morrison’s tears at the end of the episode, she does not survive. At the same time that she’s dying, Dr. Craig gets a call telling him that there is finally a heart available for the transplant. And, though it wasn’t explicitly stated, it seems pretty obvious that the heart in question belonged to Morrison’s wife.
AGCK!
Seriously, how much more depressing can one episode get? And for all this to happen to Jack Morrison, who is probably the most decent character on the show, it’s just not fair! I mean, he was literally the only married intern who had a happy marriage. He has a newborn son. And now, he’s going to have to balance being a single father with being a resident.
Poor guy! I hope next week finds some sort of relief for him.
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 gets a new plastic surgeon.
Episode 2.2 “Lust Et Veritas”
(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on November 2nd, 1982)
This episode sees the addition of two new doctors to the hospital’s staff and they’re both played by familiar actors. Elliott Axlerod is played by Stephen Furst. He’s a new resident and obviously terrified of screwing up in the ER. He asks Ehrlich and Fiscus for advice. When told that he’s required to perform a rectal exam on every patient, he asks, “Is it too late to go to law school?” Ehrlich assures him that it is.
(It’s never too late!)
Secondly, Mark Harmon joins the cast as plastic surgeon Bobby Caldwell and not even a porn star mustache can obscure the fact that young Mark Harmon was amazingly hot. (Actually, old Mark Harmon isn’t that bad either. He aged well.) Bobby, we learn, was brought to St. Eligius by Dr. Craig. He’s cocky and confident and it’s obvious that he loves being lusted after by Dr. Armstrong and Nurse Daniels. However, he already has a secret lover as this episode finds him showering with Joan Halloran, the city hall bureaucrat who spends most of her time arguing with Dr. Craig about whether or not to shut down one of the hospital’s non-profit programs.
Dr. Craig is nervous because he’s waiting for a heart to become available so he can perform his first transplant on Eve Leighton (Marian Mercer), a teacher who wants to get back into her classroom as soon as possible. Ehrlich is nervous because Craig is taking all of his frustrations. and his nervousness out on him.
Meanwhile, Jerry Singleton (Alan Arkin), the demanding husband of stroke-victim Fran (Piper Laurie), continued to push his wife to recover until finally, at the end of the episode, she yelled that he was pushing her too hard. It was a heart-breaking moment. Jerry thinks that he’s helping his wife but, as this episode showed, he’s actually been torturing her with his overbearing demands that she hurry up and get better.
Finally, a former resident named Barry Dorn (Peter Horton) returns to the hospital to try to convince Dr. Cavanero to change her negative evaluation of his job performance. Everyone acts as if Barry was a character on the show during the previous season, even though he wasn’t. It’s even revealed that he is Wendy Armstrong’s former boyfriend. When Cavanero refuses to change her evaluation, Armstrong accuses her of not having any feelings. (Seriously, Armstrong is the worst!) Even worse, when Cavanero heads to the doctor’s lounge, she finds Barry waiting for her. Barry punches her, busting open her lower lip. Armstrong stitches up the cut and then says that Cavanero is lucky because now, she’ll have an excuse to meet Dr. Caldwell! Armstrong then offers a half-hearted apology for previously accusing Cavanero of being heartless. (Again, Armstrong is the worst!!!!)
This wasn’t a bad episode. Mark Harmon and Stephen Furst seem like they’ll be good additions to the show’s ensemble. The Barry story felt a bit odd, just because Barry was apparently present but 0ff-camera during the entire first season. It sounds like Barry went through a lot of the same things that Peter White went through during the first season and Peter was not present in this episode. There’s a part of me that suspects that Barry was originally meant to be Peter but the show’s producers obviously decided they wanted to keep Peter around for a bit longer.
Next week …. well, I have no idea how things are going to develop. There’s a lot going on in this hospital. We’ll see what happens.
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, we start season 2!
Episode 2.1 “Ties That Bind”
(Dir by Bruce Paltrow, originally aired on October 26th, 1983)
The second season is here and there are changes to be found in the opening credits.
David Birney and G.W. Bailey are no longer listed in the opening credits. I’m not sorry to see Birney go as Dr. Samuels was never that interesting of a character. I will miss Bailey’s performance as Dr. Beale.
Norman Lloyd is now listed in the credits, appearing right after Ed Flanders. Ellen Bry, Kim Miyori, and Eric Laneuville are also now listed in the opening credits. That’s good. Last season, Shirley Daniels (played by Ellen Bry) was one of the most important characters on the show and it always seemed strange that she was left out of the opening. Mark Harmon, sporting a mustache, appears in the credits, though he didn’t appear in this episode. The final addition to the opening credits is Nancy Stafford, who does appear in this episode.
Stafford plays Joan Halloran, the new city budget advisor who has been assigned to cut St. Eligius’s budget. She tells Westphall and Auschlander that St. Eligius is not popular downtown. “They call you St. Elsewhere,” she says. Joan wants to do away with the animal research lab, which is a part of the hospital that has never been mentioned before. (And with good reason. Boo, animal research, boo!) Westphall finally agrees, on the condition that the city fund Dr. Craig’s attempt to perform a heart transplant on teacher Eve Leighton (Marian Mercer).
Wisely, Dr. Craig gets a lot of screentime in this episode. If the first season seemed to often be unsure of just how abrasive the show should allow Craig to be, the second season premiere would seem to suggest that the show’s writers realized that the more abrasive Craig is, the better. Of course, Dr. Craig has good reason to be in a bad mood. As he confesses to Nurse Rosenthal, he caught his son doing drugs. Craig explains he kicked him out of the house and now, he wants nothing to do with him.
Speaking of drugs, orderly Luther (played by Eric Laneuville) finally manages to capture the thief who has been stealing all the drugs from the hospital. Dr. White is no longer under suspicion! Yay, I guess. I don’t know. Dr. White wasn’t in much of this episode but he still cames across as being a jerk. I have to admit that I groaned a little when I saw he was still on the show. A part of me is hoping he’ll get a redemption arc this season but, from his behavior during rounds, he still seems to be a jackass.
Speaking of jackasses, when Jerry Singleton (Alan Arkin) discovers that his wife, Fran (Piper Laurie), has had a stroke, he responds by crashing his car into the ER and then refusing to leave the doctors along while they try to save his wife’s life. Jerry is convincing that he knows everything and he’s very demanding. Naturally, Fran’s doctor is Jack Morrison because Morrison always gets the really depressing cases. Fran does wake up from her coma but she neither speaks no seems to hear anything anyone says to her. I can’t imagine this is going to end well, mostly because she’s Morrison’s patient and things never seem to go well when Morrison is involved. (What’s really sad is that Morrison, unlike Peter White, is a good doctor! He just has rotten luck.)
Shirley Daniels finds out that Fiscus is cheating on her with Kathy Martin, who spends most of this episode promoting cryogenics. Shirley responds by dumping Fiscus and telling him that he’s a pig. Fiscus tells Kathy that they no longer have to sneak around, just for Kathy to say that the sneaking around was the whole point. She promptly dumps Ficus.
Finally, Dr. Ehrlich meets a woman, Bobbi (Jean Bruce Scott) at the laundromat. They go back to her apartment. She strips down to her underwear. She has Ehrlich tie her to the bed. Ehrlich realizes that he has to get something from his car so he runs outside and …. gets locked out. And then he nearly gets arrested while trying to use his credit card to open the building’s door. However, the next day, Bobbi shows up at the hospital for her “encounter group,” and the two of them are reunited. Again, I have a feeling this is not going to end well, just because it involves Dr. Ehrlich.
Hey, this episode was pretty good! It moved quickly, it reintroduced us to the cast, and all of the stories were actually fairly interesting. It’s obvious that show’s producers paid attention with what didn’t work during season one and they made an effort to improve things with season two. Compared to the majority of this first season’s episodes, the pace was quicker, the humor was sharper, and just about everyone got a moment or two to shine. I’m looking forward to next week!
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, the first season comes to a close.
Episode 1.22 “Addiction”
(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on May 3rd, 1983)
“To life,” Dr. Auschlander toasts towards the end of the finale of St. Elsewhere’s first season and the sentiment could not be more called for.
While Auschlander has spent the episode hanging out with a friend of his and getting into fights with disrespectful street punks, Dr. Morrison’s wife has been giving birth to their son. While someone breaks into the supply room and takes off with a huge supply of drugs, Dr. White is sobbing and telling his estranged wife that he knows he has to get help for his addictions. While one drug addict (Ralph Seymour) commits suicide by injecting an air bubble into his veins, Dr. Craig’s cocky son, Stephen (Scott Paulin), visits from medical school and turns out to be quite a weed-smoking, pill-popping drug user himself. Ehrlich, assigned to show Stephen around the hospital and teach him what it’s like being a resident, considers telling Dr. Craig that his son has a drug problem but apparently decides not to. Dr. Craig is very proud that his son is going to follow the family tradition of becoming a surgeon. Meanwhile, Dr. Fiscus cheats on Shirley Daniels with Kathy Martin. Fiscus, you idiot.
Life goes on at St. Eligius. That’s was the theme of the finale and it’s also been the theme of the first season. For all the bad things that happen, there are also good things. Some patients die. Some doctors are incompetent. But babies are born and doctors like Morrison and Ehrlich and Chandler haven’t given up and are still trying to make the world a better place. Dr. Auschlander may be terminally ill with cancer but he embraces life and we should all do the same.
It’s a good ending for an overall good first season. There were a few weak episodes. Dr. Samuels was a pretty annoying character and I’m a bit relieved to see that David Birney left the show after this season. Ed Flanders can be a bit overly somber as Dr. Westphall and Howie Mandel is still one of the least convincing doctors that I’ve ever seen. That said, Morrison, Ehrlich, Chandler, Nurse Daniels, and even Dr. White are interesting characters and I look forward to seeing what happens with them during season 2. The season’s stand-out was definitely William Daniels as the pompous yet still likable Dr. Craig. Other than the terrible storyline where he cheated on his wife (and I still claim that was a dream episode, like almost all of the stuff with Dr. Samuels), Dr. Craig was this season’s standout character.
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’s episode is a much better Dr. Craig episode than last week’s.
Episode 1.21 “Baron von Munchausen”
(Dir by Victor Hsu, originally aired on April 19th, 1983)
Anthony Rizzo (Louis Giambalvo) seems like a nice guy. He’s admitted to the hospital with complaints of stomach pain and a high fever. Dr. Morrison can’t find anything wrong with him but he does notice that Rizzo has a lot of scars. Rizzo explains that he’s had a lot of surgeries over the course of his life and he’s got a story to go with each one of them. Morrison brings in Ehrlich for a consult. Ehrlich, who loves to perform surgery, suggests opening Rizzo up and doing an exploratory. Morrison thinks it’s too early for that, Rizzo, however, loves the idea. Rizzo then proceeds to die on the operating table.
Ehrlich is shaken. Morrison is angry. However, Westphall and Craig take one look at the case and deduce that Rizzo suffered from Munchausen’s Syndrome. For whatever reason, he was addicted to going to the hospital and having surgery. He knew all the tricks, from using a light blub to make it look like he had a fever to pricking his finger with a needle to convince the doctors that there was blood in his urine. It turns out that he died because of the drugs that he had been taking to help him fake his symptoms. Both Morrison and Ehrlich are relieved to learn that Rizzo’s death was not their fault.
“So, Ehrlich lost his first patient today,” Craig says to Westphall. “It won’t be his last.”
This was a good episode for Dr. Craig, especially after all that nonsense last week. When Westphall finds himself in need of a doctor to speak to a group of inner city medical students, he is horrified to discover that Mark Craig is the only one available. Craig accepts, saying that Westphall should have asked him earlier.
Westphall’s concerns are justified. Dr. Craig is opinionated, wealthy, and more than a little prejudiced against …. well, everyone. “My ancestors came here on the Mayflower!” Craig is quick to say. And yet, the students love him, specifically because he doesn’t pretend to be anything that he isn’t. Unlike Westphall, who tries give an inspiring pep talk, Craig is open about the reality of practicing medicine in what this episode refers to as being “the ghetto.” When asked if his medical student son will be working in a ghetto clinic, Craig replies, “Why would he?” Craig gets a standing ovation from the students, which felt like a bit much but whatever. It was nice, for once, to see the show admitting that Craig’s blunt honesty can sometimes be more effective than Westphall’s noncommittal style of encouragement.
Afterwards, in a wonderfully acted scene, Craig asked Westphall why people don’t seem to like him, Westphall shrugs and then says that Craig can be arrogant, rude, prejudiced, intolerant of other worldviews …. “Thank you, Donald,” Craig cuts him off.
Meanwhile, back at the hospital, a crazy woman (Micole Mercurio) is sent to the psych ward after threatening to kill Nurse Daniels. (No, leave Shirley alone!) Dr. Wendy Armstrong, who is one of the worst characters on this show, promptly discharges the woman and lets her leave the hospital. “She threatened to kill me!” Shirley says while Wendy shrugs, unconcerned. Fiscus also proves to be of no help, as he is once again feeling attracted to Kathy Martin.
Finally, Dr. White goes to a drug addict support group and walks out when things get too emotional. Booo! Dr. White is even worse than Dr, Armstrong!
This was a good episode. Next week, the season finale!
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, someone’s getting sued!
Episode 1.19 “Working”
(Dir by Bruce Paltrow, originally aired on April 5th, 1983)
Dr. Morrison becomes upset when he deduces that a patient (Ed Lauter) is trying to drink himself to death so that his family can collect his life insurance. Dr. Chandler becomes upset when one of his patients dies while being admitted to the hospital and the family ends up suing for malpractice. For once, Dr. Craig is not upset because he’s been charmed by a visiting surgeon (Rita Zohar) from Hungary. And, finally, Dr. White continues to be Dr. White as he obsesses over his separation, pops pills, and screws up even the simplest of medical tasks.
It’s just another day at St. Eligius!
This was a pretty good episode. Dr. Craig’s storyline was probably the weakest but William Daniels is such a good actor and Dr. Craig was such an interesting character that even a weak Craig storyline is still better than average. (That said, the visiting surgeon’s amazement at visiting at actual McDonald’s was a bit heavy handed.)
What really made this episode stand out is that Denzel Washington finally got to do something more than just stand in the background and nod. For most of the first season, Dr. Chandler has been portrayed as being perhaps the most perfect and ultra-competent resident in the history of medical residences so it was interesting to see him not having all the answers for once. Washington did a wonderful job portraying Chandler’s transformation from being almost cocky to being worried that he actually was, in some way, responsible for his patient’s death. (The fact that the other doctors just shrugged off the man’s death made Chandler even more determined to figure things out.) In the past, Chandler has always been quick to call out other people’s errors and this episode actually features him nearly coming to blows with White over White’s terrible job performance. Seeing Chandler having to critically examine his own job performance brought a bit more depth to the character.
Speaking of Dr. White …. WHAT A JERK! The first season is nearly over and it seems like the show is building up to something terrible happening to Dr. White. Whatever it may be, it’s hard not to feel that he brought it on himself. In a hospital full of dedicated doctors, Dr. White is the guy you never want to see come in your room. I have no idea what’s going to happen with this doctor but I can’t imagine it will be a good thing.
Finally, Morrison’s storyline left me wondering why Morrison always ends up with the most melodramatic patients. That said, Ed Lauter was one of the best and his scenes with Norman Lloyd’s Dr. Auschlander were wonderfully acted by both men.
This was a good episode. We’re approaching the end of season one and I can’t wait to see how things are going to wrap up with the doctors at Boston’s most underrated hospital.
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!
It’s time to go under the knife in Boston.
Episode 1.16 “The Count”
(Dir by Kevin Hooks, originally aired March 8th, 1983)
Harold Beaumont (Michael Halsey), an adult film actor better known as The Count, has checked into St. Eligius. Of course, Dr. Samuels immediately recognizes him because Samuels is obsessed with porn. Dr. Annie Cavanero does not recognize him but, once she learns what he does for a living, she has to tell him that she finds his work to be offensive because Dr. Cavanero’s entire personality pretty much revolves around getting offended by stuff.
It’s not much of a plot. There’s a process server (William G. Schilling) who wants to serve the Count with a courts summons so Samuels and Cavanero help the Count hide and disguise his identity. It’s silly and dumb story that involves the two of the least likable members of the show’s regular cast.
Meanwhile, Dr. Wendy Armstrong (Kim Miyori) comes to suspect that one of the hospital’s heart surgeons, Dr. Larry Andrews (Peter Michael Goetz), is giving pacemakers to people who don’t actually need them. She takes her concerns to Dr. Craig. Craig, an old friend of Dr. Andrews, is initially dismissive but he later confronts Dr. Andrews and finds out that Armstrong was correct. Dr. Andrews explains that it takes a lot of money to fund his lifestyle. This story was an improvement over the Count but it perhaps would have had more power if it had been someone like Dr. Ehrlich who suspected that Dr. Andrews was giving people pacemakers that they don’t need. Ehrlich actually has a complicated relationship with Dr. Craig and his own less-than-stellar record as a resident would have added some ambiguity to storyline. Dr. Armstrong, on the other hand, has been portrayed as being hypercompetent and a bit self-righteous and, if we’re going to be honest, she’s kind of a boring character.
Speaking of Dr. Ehrlich, he is getting fed up with living with Fiscus. Howie Mandel is driving someone crazy? Who could have seen that coming?
This week’s episode was pretty forgettable. The story involving Dr. Andrews had potential but choosing to make the show’s least interesting characters the center of an entire episode was a decision that really didn’t pay off.
Through the Shattered Lens 