I have to be honest about this: I simply can’t fake interest in the Important Television Milestone that is the passing of ER. I was simply never much of a fan. It debuted in 1994, before I was a TV critic, and while I watched it early on to see what all the fuss was about, in the mid-’90s I was much more interested in The X-Files, My So-Called Life, 90210 and Duckman. When I came to Time as TV critic in 1999 and my job became watching what I had to rather than just what I wanted to, I made a point of keeping up, but always found the show too much of a melodrama. Having returned to it as the finale approaches, I don’t think either of us has changed much. So you’ll have to go elsewhere for your genuine mourning of ER.
That said, there was something sweet and poignant about George Clooney and Juliana Margulies’ understated return to the show. It was as if they were saying goodbye, not just to the show but to the period of TV it thrived in, as Jay Leno warms up to end the era of 10 p.m. NBC dramas. For an hour, it was the mid-’90s again. Too bad Duckman wasn’t on.
By the way, I hope to post briefly on The Office and 30 Rock, but blogging the Stewart-Cramer showdown took longer than expected and I need to do some non-blog work, so if you simply can’t bear waiting, feel free to discuss them—or any other Thursday-night TV—here.