Apparently, our b*itching about the recycled story lines is perfectly fine
with tptb:
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http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117977124.html?categoryid=2874&cs=1
'ER' seeks story transfusions
New characters offer unique spin on old plots
By ALAN SEPINWALL
David Zabel has been writing for "ER" for seven years and has risen to the
rank of showrunner. Other than John Wells and medical
consultant-turned-writer Joe Sachs, no writer has more experience with the
doctors of County General.
But there was a time, back in the drama's eighth season, when Zabel was a
rookie "ER" writer, and he quickly discovered the biggest pitfall in
writing
for such a long-running series.
"The painful part of being a new writer on 'ER,'" Zabel explains, "is that
you come on with all these great ideas, and you find out we've already
done
them. In some cases, you'll pitch what you think is a great idea for a
storyline and they'll go, 'Oh, we did that in season two, and we hit it
again in season six -- and then we did it again in season 10. I think
season
six was the best of the three.'"
It's simple math: Over the past 14 years, there have been 300 episodes of
"ER," with an average of six stories per episode. Take one setting like an
emergency room, and you're not going to find 1,800 completely unique
plots.
"We try our hardest to be original," says Zabel, "but the truth is, in a
real ER, you get similar kinds of cases over time. We try to embrace the
distinctions of different characters going through similar storylines."
In that, the series' revolving cast door has been a boon.
Maura Tierney is the only remaining regular who predates Zabel's tenure,
and
the constant influx of new faces allows the writers to show how different
people -- say, Neela Rasgotra vs. Peter Benton -- respond to the same
situations.
Zabel and Sachs try, with the help of researchers, to avoid coming too
close
to earlier plotlines. Most of the time, they succeed.
"We've done so many episodes that there are times where I forget," Zabel
says. "There are gaps in my own knowledge where we think we're doing a
great
story, and then we get a letter saying, 'In season two, episode seven,
there
was a very similar story.' No one in the room will have remembered it, but
some longtime fan spots it."
The show used to have a tradition of doing one or two big disaster
episodes
each year, but eventually, they ran out of vehicles to crash.
"We haven't done (a disaster show) in a while," says Zabel, "and that's
conscious. We got to the point where we were just pu****ng credibility too
much. It started to seem not real."
To keep things real and fresh, Zabel draws on the experience of actual ER
doctors and nurses.
"Every year we have a series of evenings called Nurses Night, Interns
Night
and Residents Night," explains Zabel. "Basically we get six or seven or
eight of those people around a table and we give them Chinese food and
pizza
and say, 'Tell us some stories about working in an emergency room.' We get
a
lot of valuable story -- not so much the big stories but the atmosphere
and
the texture."
Before the writers strike began, Wells had been talking with NBC about the
idea of doing one more season to give the series a proper finish.
"We think the show deserves and would be well-served creatively and in
audience response with a year that was built as the final season of 'ER,'"
says Zabel, who has a few ideas in mind for that potential final season --
most of them tributes to the show's long history.
An upcoming story arc this season will feature the return of Gloria
Reuben's
Jeannie Boulet, and Zabel would like to revisit other classic characters,
if
possible.
"I would love to hit Clooney and (Julianna) Margulies, the Hathaway-Ross
story again. I think there's a story to tell about how they're doing after
all these years together. I think there's a cool story about Mark Greene's
daughter. It would be really hard to do that in the potential nine
episodes
we have remaining."
And in between those potential blasts from the past, Zabel isn't worried
about coming up with other stories to fill out a 15th season, even if some
of them echo what's come before.
"We know there can be similarities, but when you do a story about a guy
with
an MI (heart attack), it doesn't mean you can never do another guy with an
MI."
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