The most sinister and one of the most enjoyable
chracters on E.R. was brought to life by Paul McCrane,
who also directed some episodes. Photo by NBC.
Did you get excited about the finale of E.R., or are you one of those "I stopped watching long ago" naysayers?
Regardless of whether the show jumped the shark with the helicopter-crash killing of brilliant bad guy Dr. Romano, it was always about character development and emotional resonance first, not just slam-bang rating grabs.
It took me a while to get into E.R., but when this Chicago native caught the bug, he fell hard.
It was while I was living alone in a chilly, remote locale to work a so-so job and feeling utterly unsure of the future that I saw some back-to-back reruns late at night.
That let me follow the evolution of the characters and their myriad subplots in a way I likely never would have if I just happened to see occasional weekly episodes.
On the other hand, that first helicopter accident involving Romano -- really a secret weapon for the show, someone the audience could root against in a satisfying way and thereby sympathize with everyone else, his victims -- that fixed my attention on the series for good.
Parminder Nagra helped bring alive the stories on
E.R. with her cerebral portrayal of Dr. Neela Rasgotra,
who wasn't shy about workplace love. Photo by NBC.
After I discovered the minor miracle of the DVR, I managed to catch up on the entire series and really became a devotee.
Nevermind that the reruns appeared on a women's lifestyle-marketed network. Lots of Joy dishwashing liquid commercials and such, for sure.
If I had to pick a character I empathize with the most, I'd say it was Neela (played by Parminder Nagra), whose ambivalence about her life -- and love -- choices and "stuck in her head" struggle felt very familiar.
We even both were exiled to Michigan for a while. And we're drawn to Louisiana, for different reasons.
If I had to pick one episode that encapsulated the believable subtlety of the actors in a wildly entertaining storyline that showed the range of the writers and producers, I'd say it was when Drs. Carter and Kovac worked in Africa:
If I had to pick one weakness of the series, it was the patients. Their portrayal never was up to par with the regular cast's ability, and it was the hospital staffers who carried the emotional weight of the show anyway. How distracting they had to heal all those complaining sickies.
I had the pleasure of interviewing a local actress who landed a minor role on the show several years ago, although I never got around to interviewing Redwood City native Linda Cardellini, who played nurse Samantha Taggart for a surprising run, given how the chicas seemed to come and go in a revolving-door fashion.
Anyway, the one I did get on the phone, Giovannie Espiritu (a.k.a. Pico), was a blip on the radar of E.R. in the long run, but she lent her brief starpower to the cause of domestic-violence prevention, as recorded in this snippet of a San Mateo County Times article about a 2007 relationship seminar at a South City church:
Giovannie Pico, a TV actor who lives in San Bruno with her 6-year-old son and other relatives, will host Saturday's event. The Filipina said the religious setting is important to her because of her own experience dealing with an abusive partner.
"I was told by church members that I needed to pray harder," she said, "or that I was supposed to submit to my husband. It's really like a change in tide in the way that the church is talking about domestic violence."
Pico, 28, has appeared on "ER" and "Bones" and has an upcoming role in "Gilmore Girls," is directing a Tagalog version of "The Vagina Monologues" on March 24 at the Herbst Theatre. The 28-year- old said focusing on the Filipino community is part of a broader effort to educate people about abuse.
"There's a lot of shame that's surrounding it," Pico said. "I was in a relationship that was domestically violent, and I didn't even know. I didn't know what a healthy relationship looked like."
It may not be a healthy relationship to fall in love with a TV show either. E.R. eventually led to crushes on The Shield and Lost and Mad Men, and so it goes. Yet I will always have a soft spot for County General Hospital and its nuanced, lifelike, downright literary cast of characters.
Thanks for that respite from the worries of real life, if only for an hour a week.
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