Mark isn't doing so well: Swift overrides him and casts doubts on his decisions. He's vague and unfocussed. Swift, without warning, gets him to present the case from Love's Labor Lost in a lecture hall, so his every decision is inspected for errors. Afterwards, over at Doc MaGoo's, Mark tells Susan that Jen is leaving him. It's curious to see the lead character - and Green is very much the lead - unravelling in the first season (although it does set the pattern for the Chief Resident's going a bit nuts from the pressure which the show continues to this day).
Susan, however, has to deal with the return of her very heavily pregnant sister Chloe. It's just taken me five minutes to decode my note on this, but it reads "man, were baby bumps unconvincing in those days".
Chen and Carter are competing over their procedural notebooks - keeping score of what they have done. It's odd to compare the emphasis on these two as students to the relative lack of academic ideas with, say Neela and Ray. In season 12 you don't get the sense that it is the end of the academic year to the same extent as you do in season 1. Chen is always shown as less competent than Carter. after a central line goes wrong, she flees. Carter eventually tracks her down at (very rich mother's) home. Despite his scruffiness he is relaxed at the party being thrown, giving away his own rich background. He convinces Chen to stay on at the ER.
Jake, Diane's son, has found out that Diane and Doug are a couple. Doug's response is to buy the kid a bike. I'm guessing this will tie with the previously mentioned loss of his son.
The trouble with doing this from notes is that I forget what some of the scribbles meant.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
12.21 The Gallant Hero & the Tragic Victor
I'm trying to catch up on a backlog caused by summer, work business and a 'thing'.
Mikey dies. No-one in the audience is shocked because it has been clearly on the cards ever since he shipped back to Iraq and the Neela/Ray 'ship started to be in the text instead of the subtext. The episode is very nicely topped and tailed with Gallant: it starts with him alive, thinking of Neela, and ends with a tape he's made for her in the event of his death, in which he is thinking of Neela. Neela's reaction to the news - her desire to hear it straight away, her running away back to work, hiding on the roof, going home not because she wants to but because she is sick of everyone's concern - is wonderful. Parminda breaks your heart as Neela breaks down. Gallant was always thinking of her and instead she was buying a coffee or doing her laundry as he died. She's guilty not because anything had happened with Ray but that her thoughts had even strayed towards the idea. In the rooftop scene I was especially taken with the fact that she started to talk to Ray until he said he'd do anything, when she suddenly backs away as if remembering that he is part of the problem. Their burgeoning feelings have robbed them both of their best friends. Oh yes, and she has surgery next year which, as profshallowness remarks, is dangerously similar to what they did with Cordey but hopefully the different dynamics (Dubenko and Albright) will make it work.
Pratt is back from Africa and busy demonstrating that he has matured as a consequence. His own grief over Gallant makes much more sense and is well played. He also deals with two kids who have killed their abusive father and doesn't argue with Luka once. I like the new Pratt, I just hate the way they went about maturing him.
Clemente goes nuts. No-one in the audience is shocked because it has been clearly on the cards ever since he arrived. Again, that's a nice piece of mirroring. At the start of his storyline, he was pretending to be a patient on drugs in order to see how this new ER operated. At the end of his storyline, he is a patient, zombied out on drugs, and being wheeled upstairs.
Mikey dies. No-one in the audience is shocked because it has been clearly on the cards ever since he shipped back to Iraq and the Neela/Ray 'ship started to be in the text instead of the subtext. The episode is very nicely topped and tailed with Gallant: it starts with him alive, thinking of Neela, and ends with a tape he's made for her in the event of his death, in which he is thinking of Neela. Neela's reaction to the news - her desire to hear it straight away, her running away back to work, hiding on the roof, going home not because she wants to but because she is sick of everyone's concern - is wonderful. Parminda breaks your heart as Neela breaks down. Gallant was always thinking of her and instead she was buying a coffee or doing her laundry as he died. She's guilty not because anything had happened with Ray but that her thoughts had even strayed towards the idea. In the rooftop scene I was especially taken with the fact that she started to talk to Ray until he said he'd do anything, when she suddenly backs away as if remembering that he is part of the problem. Their burgeoning feelings have robbed them both of their best friends. Oh yes, and she has surgery next year which, as profshallowness remarks, is dangerously similar to what they did with Cordey but hopefully the different dynamics (Dubenko and Albright) will make it work.
Pratt is back from Africa and busy demonstrating that he has matured as a consequence. His own grief over Gallant makes much more sense and is well played. He also deals with two kids who have killed their abusive father and doesn't argue with Luka once. I like the new Pratt, I just hate the way they went about maturing him.
Clemente goes nuts. No-one in the audience is shocked because it has been clearly on the cards ever since he arrived. Again, that's a nice piece of mirroring. At the start of his storyline, he was pretending to be a patient on drugs in order to see how this new ER operated. At the end of his storyline, he is a patient, zombied out on drugs, and being wheeled upstairs.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
01.19 Full Moon, Saturday Night
....going back to season 1 on DVD....
Mark is still very cut up by the deaths in Love's Labor Lost. Susan forces him to take the night off but he only gets as far as Doc MaGoo's.
It's the night of the full moon, when they get the really wierd stuff. A PCP gangbanger comes into trauma 1, smashing the big window between the two trauma rooms. A Auto-Versus-Pedestrian comes in. The kid is OK but the driver has a heart attack (trauma 2). A moonlighting doctor, Swift, arrives, who will be taking over from Morgenstern.
Benton's mother is still in hospital. Going to visit her, he finds her Jean already there and his mother in restraints. Jean ordered it, because Mrs Benton keeps trying to get out of bed.
Carter gets a girl obsessed with astrology. He was born on 4th June 1970.
Ross and Diane are dating, and having sex.
The Diaster Plan is activated when there is a fire in a nightclub. Ross, Benton and Mark are all paged to get in as quickly as possible. Ross and Benton make it. Mark is in a bar, playing a beat'emup game and doesn't hear his pager. Susan does her best to cover for him when it turns out that Swift triggered a practise drill to see how well his new ER does. (This reminds me of Clemente's arrival in season 12, where he pretends to be a patient in order to test his new colleagues.)
Benton has unstrapped his mother, but she falls from the bed and he has to accept that she is seriously ill.
Chen misapplies a treatment and nearly sets a guy on fire. There's another patient who claims to be a werewolf.
Mark and Doug ride home on the El. After Doug leaves him, Green gets off but just sits on the station bench. Jen arrives and forces Mark to eat some breakfast.
Carol asks Susan to bridesmaid.
Mark is still very cut up by the deaths in Love's Labor Lost. Susan forces him to take the night off but he only gets as far as Doc MaGoo's.
It's the night of the full moon, when they get the really wierd stuff. A PCP gangbanger comes into trauma 1, smashing the big window between the two trauma rooms. A Auto-Versus-Pedestrian comes in. The kid is OK but the driver has a heart attack (trauma 2). A moonlighting doctor, Swift, arrives, who will be taking over from Morgenstern.
Benton's mother is still in hospital. Going to visit her, he finds her Jean already there and his mother in restraints. Jean ordered it, because Mrs Benton keeps trying to get out of bed.
Carter gets a girl obsessed with astrology. He was born on 4th June 1970.
Ross and Diane are dating, and having sex.
The Diaster Plan is activated when there is a fire in a nightclub. Ross, Benton and Mark are all paged to get in as quickly as possible. Ross and Benton make it. Mark is in a bar, playing a beat'emup game and doesn't hear his pager. Susan does her best to cover for him when it turns out that Swift triggered a practise drill to see how well his new ER does. (This reminds me of Clemente's arrival in season 12, where he pretends to be a patient in order to test his new colleagues.)
Benton has unstrapped his mother, but she falls from the bed and he has to accept that she is seriously ill.
Chen misapplies a treatment and nearly sets a guy on fire. There's another patient who claims to be a werewolf.
Mark and Doug ride home on the El. After Doug leaves him, Green gets off but just sits on the station bench. Jen arrives and forces Mark to eat some breakfast.
Carol asks Susan to bridesmaid.
Friday, May 26, 2006
12.20 Pratt in Africa
I know it had a real title but we're going to always call it that, let's be honest.
There is very little to say about this. Pratt goes to Africa. Genocide turns out to be a useful backdrop to his personal growth. The end.
There is very little to say about this. Pratt goes to Africa. Genocide turns out to be a useful backdrop to his personal growth. The end.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Friday, May 12, 2006
12.19 No Place to Hide
No Neela or Ray in the "previous on..." so even if I didn't already know this episode was light on them I could take a guess.
Clemente is paranoid, but Bobby really is out to get him. I assume the recovering Jodie is in a safe-house somewhere since she is the victim of a shooting by a policeman but this hasn't been mentioned. the focus is very much on Clemente's nerves.
Jane is back! I love Clemente's "Who are you? why did I never see you before?" because, well, Jane has been missing for an age.
Morris has taken the job, the money-grabbing freak. I'm sure the Morris/Albright shippers were delighted with them finally kissing in the dispensary but personally, it doesn't make up for the lack of Neela/Ray 'shippy goodness. Over on neela_ray someone pointed out that not only do they have very few scenes but that none of them are together. This is a nice way of driving home the sudden divide between them, just as the way each Neela scene was followed by a Ray scene in Lost in America links them together. very nice subtle use of storyline, ER writers!
Unlike Pratt going to Africa. I've worked out why I don't like these segments and it is the bloody music. It sets out to say "this is Important and Dramatic and Powerful" and goes against the normal style of ER. Remember when ER started and audiences reeled from the idea of handheld cameras and choppy editing? The Africa stuff is the antithesis of this so it becomes ponderous. Unlike Pratt, I read up on Darfur a couple of years ago and I've noticed that ER hasn't explained a key element - that the Jangaweed are militia employed by the government. So we get an info-dump and editorial on the airplane about how horrific it is, but the political reasons for the situation are not explored. Having said all that, I am glad the mob murder scene - in which Pratt witnesses a Jangaweed being cudgeled and stoned to death - was included because it stopped treated the IDP as noble and passive victims. The downside is that the mob was Muslim (and there were deliberate shots of Muslims at prayer earlier) and there is enough anti-Muslim bollocks coming out of the US right now without this.
I just think without giving the situation context, and with all that damn Stirring Music, the show makes its points (the situation in Darfur is genoicide) without providing real understanding (it is state-sanctioned genoicide on religious grounds). There's a phrase "war tourism" for how some people go to dangerous situations for kicks and without looking deeper into the cultural and political reasons for it - ER is treading very close to being "humanitarian tourism". I'm not sure I can bear to watch next week's episode...
Meanwhile, back in the shallow end of the ER pool...last week Luka said it would take Pratt about four weeks to get his jabs and the paperwork...which means Neela and Ray have been avoiding each other for four weeks. This seems to make sense, as Abby's pregnancy cushion got a whole lot bigger. I'm wondering if all the business with the girl and her granny is some kind of foreshadowing...OMG! They're going to kill Luka! OK, maybe not. I'm going to post my speculation re the season finale seperately on neela_ray in a bit.
Sam's ex is back, with an exploding appendix. Clemente nearly sent him back to jail but Neela went all caring liberal and spotted it in time.
Clemente is paranoid, but Bobby really is out to get him. I assume the recovering Jodie is in a safe-house somewhere since she is the victim of a shooting by a policeman but this hasn't been mentioned. the focus is very much on Clemente's nerves.
Jane is back! I love Clemente's "Who are you? why did I never see you before?" because, well, Jane has been missing for an age.
Morris has taken the job, the money-grabbing freak. I'm sure the Morris/Albright shippers were delighted with them finally kissing in the dispensary but personally, it doesn't make up for the lack of Neela/Ray 'shippy goodness. Over on neela_ray someone pointed out that not only do they have very few scenes but that none of them are together. This is a nice way of driving home the sudden divide between them, just as the way each Neela scene was followed by a Ray scene in Lost in America links them together. very nice subtle use of storyline, ER writers!
Unlike Pratt going to Africa. I've worked out why I don't like these segments and it is the bloody music. It sets out to say "this is Important and Dramatic and Powerful" and goes against the normal style of ER. Remember when ER started and audiences reeled from the idea of handheld cameras and choppy editing? The Africa stuff is the antithesis of this so it becomes ponderous. Unlike Pratt, I read up on Darfur a couple of years ago and I've noticed that ER hasn't explained a key element - that the Jangaweed are militia employed by the government. So we get an info-dump and editorial on the airplane about how horrific it is, but the political reasons for the situation are not explored. Having said all that, I am glad the mob murder scene - in which Pratt witnesses a Jangaweed being cudgeled and stoned to death - was included because it stopped treated the IDP as noble and passive victims. The downside is that the mob was Muslim (and there were deliberate shots of Muslims at prayer earlier) and there is enough anti-Muslim bollocks coming out of the US right now without this.
I just think without giving the situation context, and with all that damn Stirring Music, the show makes its points (the situation in Darfur is genoicide) without providing real understanding (it is state-sanctioned genoicide on religious grounds). There's a phrase "war tourism" for how some people go to dangerous situations for kicks and without looking deeper into the cultural and political reasons for it - ER is treading very close to being "humanitarian tourism". I'm not sure I can bear to watch next week's episode...
Meanwhile, back in the shallow end of the ER pool...last week Luka said it would take Pratt about four weeks to get his jabs and the paperwork...which means Neela and Ray have been avoiding each other for four weeks. This seems to make sense, as Abby's pregnancy cushion got a whole lot bigger. I'm wondering if all the business with the girl and her granny is some kind of foreshadowing...OMG! They're going to kill Luka! OK, maybe not. I'm going to post my speculation re the season finale seperately on neela_ray in a bit.
Sam's ex is back, with an exploding appendix. Clemente nearly sent him back to jail but Neela went all caring liberal and spotted it in time.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
The Roomie Awards
And whilst we're about it....
I've been nominated in The Roomie Awards!
I'm up for Best Post-Ep fic for Passing in the Night and Best Author (crikey). See the noms here. Someone was asking me about Ray/Neela fic: that noms list is a good place to start.
Voting ends 13th May. Eep!
I've been nominated in The Roomie Awards!
I'm up for Best Post-Ep fic for Passing in the Night and Best Author (crikey). See the noms here. Someone was asking me about Ray/Neela fic: that noms list is a good place to start.
Voting ends 13th May. Eep!
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