Last night’s “ER” was the last show in the long series. When it was a new show, I watched it every week for several years, but I got tired of the recycled stories and overwrought drama. There are only so many superdramatic things that can happen – bus crashes, train crashes, industrial accidents, infected hangnails, gangrene earlobes, doctors eating lunches out of vending machines, people kissing each other on the lips, etc.
Story Outline 1) A horrible car crash - a mom and her boys. In a surprise twist, we find out the other car was the dad on his way home from the business trip! Who will live? Who will die? Because they can’t ALL live – someone has to die. That’s the rule. Usually the parent who dies is the one asked about most by the children when they woke up – “where’s my mom?” or “what happened to my dad? He was in that room over there a minute ago.” (Conveniently, it is possible to look from one trauma room into the next through windows in the doors, so the 6-year old can dramatically watch the doctors rush around trying to save mom or dad, giving them chest compressions or electrifying them with the Paddles of Life.)
Story Outline 2) Dr. Healthyguy, a physician in the ER, is having a routine surgery to remove a mole shaped like Mt. Rushmore. Everything is going fine, but then – beep beep beep from the monitors and suddenly it’s an emergency! There is just no way anyone could have anticipated this perfectly normal, strong, smolderingly-attractive doctor would have a complication, except for everyone who has seen the show.
In last night’s show, part of which I actually sat down and watched, a woman, pregnant with twins, was in a car accident. She was brought into the ER and gave birth to the two babies. The second one had some problems. Then the baby was fine. Whew – that’s a relief! But then the impossible and unpredictable happened – the mom started to have complications. She was rushed to surgery. When the young med student (we’ll call her “Dr. Brunette”) went up to check on the mom’s status, she was horrified to find that the mother had died. I knew that would happen when the second twin was given a clean bill of health, and I’m disappointed the med student didn’t know this was going to happen. Has she not seen this show before? What does she think this place is, Disneyland? People go to this ER to die. It’s Chicago’s answer to Cabot Cove, the TV town with a murder rate higher than your average federal prison.
In another scene, a man who’s had AIDS for 20 years finds out from Dr. Brunette that he is dying of cancer, which makes him happy. He has been waiting to find out how he was going to die from AIDS for 20 years and has finally found peace with himself. This perplexes Dr. Brunette, because she has obviously never seen a medical show on TV. Anyone who’s watched ER, Gray’s Anatomy, Scrubs, or Captain Kangaroo knows that sometimes people DON’T CARE if they are going to die, and (understandably) don’t want painful, difficult chemotherapy to extend their lives for 3 weeks.
Sometimes it bugs J when I watch a show like this that I rarely watch, and for good reason. I am always asking her annoying questions to try to keep up with the personal dealings of the characters, and sometimes I predict what’s going to happen next:
“Who’s that guy?”
“Are tall nurse and Dr. Whatshisname still dating?”
“What happened to the guy with the beard – is he still on the show?”
“Dr. Handsome should go check on that guy with the cough – he’s probably dead in the lobby.”
“I thought they were married already?”
“I’ll give you three-to-one the mom and the daughter don’t make it out of surgery.”
They’re replacing the show with a new one called “Southland” which appears to be a violent and depressing cop show. I will continue my tradition of not watching ER by not watching Southland. And whatever violent, depressing show replaces it.
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In other news, our new roof is on the house. They did a good job – they arrived when they said they would and they finished when they said they would. In today’s world, that counts for a lot.
I learned a few things by watching them – they worked on one side of the roof at a time, which was smart, and they used a conveyer belt to move the shingles onto the roof instead of carrying them up. I didn’t see the conveyer but I would have liked to. Also, I learned that if you smoke, being a roofer is a great job because no one cares if you smoke outdoors, and you can just throw the butts off the roof and let them sail away in the wind.
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Have a good weekend!
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