The sad decline that is the E.R. tv show
I used to really like the show ER. The first 2-3 seasons were great, and I watched them in reruns every day on Bravo.
Some spoilers ahead if you haven't watched the 5/17 episode.
Now, I increasingly find myself annoyed with the repetetive storylines, overhyped drama, and characters I don't care about. And it's not like they're repeating storylines from 5 seasons ago, they're repeating them from 3 seasons ago. We used to have a love triangle of John Carter/Abby Lockhart/Luca Kovac, now we have the love triangle of Ray Lastname/Neela Rasgotra/John Stamos' character (it's a sign of my lack of interest that I don't remember Ray's last name, or Stamos' character's first OR last name). The "there's a sick baby in trouble that unites us all" storyline every few episodes (most recently, Abby's unborn baby, a somewhat-repeat of the traumadrama of Green/Corday's baby who accidently got dosed with Ecstacy). And the dramatic injury storyline has repeated twice now, getting bigger and more dramatic each time -- Dr Greene was savagely beaten back in season 2 or 3, Dr Romano had his arm cut off by a helicopter and reattached and amputated when it wasn't healing, and just last night we find out that Ray lost BOTH of his legs after getting hit by a car.
And my reaction? "Damn." Seriously, this character, a prominent part of the ensemble, has no legs and I'm basically "meh" to it.
Basically for the past 2-3 seasons I've been watching less and less of this show. I think I probably missed about half of last season's episodes due to lack of interest (that and WOW, of course, but I can play WOW and watch TV). Maybe they need to let the show end, just as they did with The West Wing when it started to decline.
Some spoilers ahead if you haven't watched the 5/17 episode.
Now, I increasingly find myself annoyed with the repetetive storylines, overhyped drama, and characters I don't care about. And it's not like they're repeating storylines from 5 seasons ago, they're repeating them from 3 seasons ago. We used to have a love triangle of John Carter/Abby Lockhart/Luca Kovac, now we have the love triangle of Ray Lastname/Neela Rasgotra/John Stamos' character (it's a sign of my lack of interest that I don't remember Ray's last name, or Stamos' character's first OR last name). The "there's a sick baby in trouble that unites us all" storyline every few episodes (most recently, Abby's unborn baby, a somewhat-repeat of the traumadrama of Green/Corday's baby who accidently got dosed with Ecstacy). And the dramatic injury storyline has repeated twice now, getting bigger and more dramatic each time -- Dr Greene was savagely beaten back in season 2 or 3, Dr Romano had his arm cut off by a helicopter and reattached and amputated when it wasn't healing, and just last night we find out that Ray lost BOTH of his legs after getting hit by a car.
And my reaction? "Damn." Seriously, this character, a prominent part of the ensemble, has no legs and I'm basically "meh" to it.
Basically for the past 2-3 seasons I've been watching less and less of this show. I think I probably missed about half of last season's episodes due to lack of interest (that and WOW, of course, but I can play WOW and watch TV). Maybe they need to let the show end, just as they did with The West Wing when it started to decline.