1c24 Subj : Re: Canon City To : alt.tv.er From : Dropping The Helicopter Date : Sat Sep 24 2005 06:45:05 From Newsgroup: alt.tv.er npardue@indiana.edu wrote: > So. It's a new season. Or some approximation thereof. > And ER definitely has a different feel. Kind of sticky. No, not sticky, staticy. Like packing peanuts. You try to brush them off you, but they just break into smaller and smaller pieces, pieces just as sticky and staticy, each more troublesome than its parent. Eventually you have no choice but to take off all your clothes and throw them away because you can't get the packing peanut debris off of them. That's what ER feels like. Staticy packing peanut debris. > That was > the main thing that struck me about the eppy -- it didn't 'feel' like > any previous season; neither like the generally crappy stuff we've been > fed the past two seasons, nor did it feel like 'classic ER.' The > question is, do I like this new style of ER, and I can't answer that > yet, because I haven't decided. In each storyline there were things I > liked a lot, and things I didn't like at all. > In all seriousness, I didn't get a new feel at all. In fact I got the exact opposite: - The road trip was an almost verbatim ripoff of the Doug/Mark one in season (whenever). - We've seen the exact same "New Residents Are Idiots" stuff in each and every season. In fact, I believe that they used mostly stock footage in the premiere for that, and simply spliced in footage of Howie Mandel from "St. Elsewhere" for the scenes with Neela. - They even dredged up the "Day in the life" episode(s). Well, in this one I guess I do have to hand it to them: they covered *THREE* shifts! Yawn. The only "feel" thing that I noticed that was even remotely different than run-of-the-mill ER was the music at the very end. And that was only different because it wasn't some obscure modern track, but a well-worn oldie. > I found the Sam/Luka storyline very watchable (or, maybe it was just > that Luka was exceptionally watchable...), though it did peter out at > the end. And, of course, they never explained a few rather important > points ... like how Alex made it all the way to Colorado without anyone > wondering who this kid was. Sam did the franctic mom thing well. Yes, but it made little sense to me, and (dare I say it?) broke my suspension of disbelief (there, I did it, I used a theatre term about as far away from anything theatre as possible, and I will not apologize!). "Oh my God, my bratty kid ran away again! I'm in such a complete tizzy that I'll hit a deer and nearly kill me and a guy that should by all rights have cut my sweet ass loose seasons ago, AND THEN TRY TO DRIVE OFF IN HIS WRECKED CAR. THEN I WILL TRY TO ***HITCHHIKE*** TO COLORADO." I'm getting angry just thinking about it. > Rather > scuzzy of her to dump Luka like that at the end though. "Thank you for > running me halfway across the country and letting me trash your car ... > but now I'm leaving you because we don't want the same things in life." > Nonononono: "I want my life back." WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!?!?!? "HER LIFE"!??!!? WHAT LIFE?!? THE LIFE WHERE YOU GOT KNOCKED UP AT 16 BY SOME HAIRBAG?!?!?! YOU WANT THAT BACK?!?!?!? WHAT KIND OF TARD ARE YOU?!?!? GOD!!!! > Seems to me that if, as we know, Sam and Luka are splitting, there is > no real reason to need to have Alex in the story any more. So why was > it necessary to recast him for one episode. I think TPTB are running mostly on spite. > Did Alex #1 (forget the > actor's name ... Oliver something?) Alex York. >not know that he planned to leave > the show BEFORE they shot the final eppy of the last season? This > episode was also filmed back in May, was it not? OMG you are not serious. > So they couldn't get > him to stick around for one more episode? They were probably both on the set at the same time!!! > I noted that, in the > 'previously on ER', they reshot the 'Alex hitchhiking' scene with the > new kid. > OH. MY. GOD. PA. THET. IC. > And the scenes in the ER. I liked the fact that they finally > remembered that County is supposed to be a teaching hospital. I very > much disliked the way they shoved down our throat, in every single > scene, that "COUNTY IS A TEACHING HOSPITAL." They could have been a > BIT more subtle about it all. Whatle? Your words are strange to my ears, woman from the future. > There were, as near as I could tell, no > attendings on duty. Susan was around for a bit, but seemed more > interesting in eating apples than in supervising, or even seeing the > occassional patient herself. Yeah, I can't figure out why she left the show either. > And the scene of "Dr. Lockhart -- God's gift to medicine" grated on me > .. and I usually LIKE Abby. > The head stapler was AWESOME though. > A few other minor glitches/questions. > How probable was it for the kid in the Davenport hospital to have been > Alex. Could he really have ended up in a diabetic coma THAT fast? He > left the previous evening; it's now early the next morning. > How probable was it that a helicopter would fall on Romano? QED. > We're told that the story started early on a Tuesday morning, which was > also the first day of work for the new residents. Residents start July > 1st, right? The 1st was a Friday. > > Along with recasting Alex, they also aged him a bit. IIRC, he was 9 > when he joined the show early S10 (October 2003). It's now just under 2 > years later and he's 12. > That's in TV years though, every show does that. > While I liked Luka's little anecdote about Marko, (and I noted that the > closed captioning could spell neither Marko nor Danijela correctly!), > the age of the kid has me puzzled. While it was never entirely clear > how old he was when he died, he was in a crib, so was probably under 3. > THe story had to have happened the summer before the war began -- like > summer 1990 -- by summer 1991 they were already in Vukovar. So he would > have been under 2. Which seems a bit young to have done all the stuff > Luka describes him doing. (Being left alone on the beach, wandering off > that quickly, telling the police his name and giving them enough > personal information that they could track down Danijella. (Kovac is a > VERY common name -- just telling the police that he was Marko Kovac > wouldn't have gotten them very far!) > Don't worry, in a few more episodes, Luka's family will be magically alive or some damn thing. > But I loved Sam's line about "There are beaches in Croatia?" > I did too, but I suspect they're going to wear that shtick out pretty quick. And actually I thought Croatia was landlocked ;-). > I think the new season has promise, but the jury is definitely still > out. > A wise man once said, "Justice isn't blind, it just looks the other way." The jury's reached a verdict, but the judge refuses to pronounce sentence. > Naomi > -- Dropping T. Helicopter . 0