Product Description
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Over its six-season run, the ground-breaking, critically
accled St. Elsewhere was nominated for over 60 Emmy Awards,
winning 13 of them! This remarkable series, with its unique blend
of intense medical drama, off-beat humor and imaginative
storytelling, paved the way for later TV classics such as E.R.
and Chicago Hope, while introducing America to future superstars
Mark Harmon, Howie Mandel, and O(r)-winner* Denzel
Washington. Eccentric, inful, and intelligent, St. Elsewhere
is considered to be one of the best dramas ever to air on
broadcast television.
.com
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Beginning its six-year run in 1982, St. Elsewhere was neither
television's first ensemble medical drama nor, heaven knows, its
last. Yet this four-disc set of all 22 episodes from the first
season is a reminder that this was, and still is, one of the very
best. Even now, when "reality" programming blights the landscape
like some biblical plague, doc, cop, and lawyer shows remain
stes of the medium, and while the likes of C.S.I., E.R., and
Grey's Anatomy have it all over St. Elsewhere in the sizzle
department--the production values are much flashier, the content
sexier, more graphic, and faster-moving, the technology both in
front of and behind the camera light years more
sophisticated--the older show, despite its somewhat cheesy '70s
vibe, is the hands-down winner when it comes to the actual steak.
That's because it does it the old-fashioned way: by relying on
good writing, vividly-drawn, identifiable characters, and
excellent performances by an eye-opening group of actors.
Co-creators Joshua Brand and John Falsey's pilot episode, which
establishes the scene at Boston's St. Eligius Hospital (mocked as
"St. Elsewhere" due to its rundown facilities and reputation as a
"dumping ground" for the poor and disenfranchised), isn't
especially promising. While we can see right away that the show
sports a lighter, more humorous tone than others of its genre,
the direction is static, the acting and dialogue are often stiff,
and what passes for "chaos" is pretty tame. But it hits its
stride almost immediately thereafter, as the characters
(including Howie Mandel's wisecracking Dr. Fiscus, David Morse's
driven, committed Dr. Morrison, William Daniels' egotistical,
pompous Dr. Craig, and Ed Begley, Jr.'s nerdy Dr. Ehrlich) are
more fully realized. The cast, in fact, may be the most
impressive ever assembled for a TV program: in the first season
alone, the list of actors with regular, recurring, and one-
appearances includes future movie stars Denzel Washington (a
regular, but his role is minor), Tim Robbins, Ally Sheedy,
Christopher Guest, Laraine Newman, Ray Liotta, Tom Hulce, Michael
Madsen, and Rae Dawn Chong. Sure, some of the multiple storylines
are dated: the handling of issues like control, immigration,
and terrorism seems almost quaint by today's standards, and a
running gag concerning ladies man Dr. Samuels' (David Birney)
having to inform his many lovers that he has gonorrhea comes off
as tasteless and unfunny, notwithstanding that era's low
awareness of AIDS and other STDs. But on the whole, this St.
Elsewhere set (extras include audio commentary for "Cora and
Arnie," plus four featurettes) is a reminder of episodic TV at
its best. --Sam Graham