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, the nurses go on strike.  Fire all of them!, I say.

Episode 3.3 “Two Balls and a Strike”

(Dir by David Anspaugh, originally aired on October 3rd, 1984)

It’s another depressing few days at St. Eligius.

When negotiations break down, all of the nurses — except for Shirley Daniels — go on strike.  Led by Nurse Rosenthal, they march out of the hospital and join a picket line in the rain.  Triumphant music plays on the soundtrack  Rosenthal gets on her bullhorn and announces that anyone making deliveries to the hospital will be crossing the picket line and not showing solidarity with the union.  Honestly, though?  Screw the union.  It’s a hospital!  It needs supplies.  There are people dying inside of that building and they’re not even going to have the dignity of clean linen because of Nurse Rosenthal and her stupid union.  And another thing …. Rosenthal is the head of union at St. Eligius.  So, why isn’t she marching in the rain and carrying a sign?  Why does she get to stand in the doorway and shout at people?  Get out there and suffer for your union, you British commie!

Obviously, the show wanted me to be inspired by Rosenthal and the union.  Whenever it switched over to the picket line, triumphant music started playing.  I’m with Nurse Daniels on this one, though.  Daniels didn’t vote the union so why should she have to suffer in the rain?  She stays on the job.  “Good luck,” Rosenthal tells her, “you’ll need it.”  And all I can say to that is that at least Shirley Daniels isn’t deserting the hospital’s patients.

While the nurses are on strike, Dr. Canavero is attacked by a hulking man wearing a ski mask.  Canavero is able to fight him off.  Westphall and everyone else at the hospital immediately assumes that the man was Peter White but Peter has an alibi.  He was in radiology when Canavero was attacked.  So, is there a new ski mask rapist haunting the hospital?  The first ski mask rapist storyline was pretty disturbing, especially since Peter got away with it.  I’m not sure I want to go through a second one.

Dr. Craig and Ellen went to couples therapy.  As usual, Dr. Craig got annoyed with the whole thing.  There’s really nothing more fun than watching Dr. Craig get annoyed.  No one gets annoyed better than William Daniels.  Still, it seemed to do Dr. Craig and Ellen some good, with Ellen making plans to go to Hawaii and Dr. Craig acknowledging that he’s not always the easiest person to deal with.

As for Dr. Westphall …. he spent most of this episode depressed.  Westphall is always depressed.

This is my final St. Elsewhere review for 2025.  Retro Television Review is taking a break for the holidays, so I can focus on Awards Season and Christmas movies!  St. Elsewhere will return on January 9th.