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.

We’ll see what happens next week.