snip
> The opening scenes were not promising. The stuff with the camel was
> definitely one of the top ten Stupidest ER 'Humor' moments ever
> filmed. (And that scene also included the now required juvenile
> ***ual humor, with the intern gawking at Neela's butt, and (a few
> minutes later) everyone getting the chance to gawk at Dubenko's.
>
There is also the stupid notion that any County hospital anywhere would
have
a 'Christmas pageant' and that it would include a living nativity. The
ACLU
would be all over that in a heartbeat. The camel bite humor wasn't worth
the ridiculous setup.
snip
I LOVED the scene in Neela's
> apartment.
I loved that we got to see that Neela had no idea that Abby was an
alcoholic
despite being her 'bestest fwend'. I also liked that it was written in
such
a way that we saw how low Abby had sunk as she viciously attacked Neela to
avoid discussing her issues. What I didn't like is that Neela made no
effort to prevent Abby from getting in her car and driving off three
sheets
to the wind. Friends don't let friends drive drunk. I also thought it
was
very wrong of Neela not to tell Luka what happened when she saw him later.
Abby is her friend, this is not the time for keeping secrets; she, her
child
and everyone else is at serious risk. This also makes at least 4 people
working at County who know Abby is seriously messed up (and Neela and Luka
know exactly what the problem is) who do not bother to try to make sure
she
doesn't work on patients. And, in a couple eppies, when she's back from
rehab, Anspaugh and the other bosses fall all over themselves praising her
for getting help on her own rather than waiting to be caught, completely
ignoring the fact that she should've been caught and would've been, had
others done their job.
snipped, since I agree, Luka is the kind of guy who takes responsibility
and
it was not out of character for him to feel guilty about Abby's drinking
and
his lack of understanding of how serious her problem is. It was, however,
completely out of character for him to abandon his wife and child
completely
for months on end and for him to expect Abby to pay the bills on a
resident's salary while he didn't work since they apparently had no
savings
or credit cards and he didn't negotiate a severance package when he
stopped
being chief. That was bad writing, with logic holes that a truck could
drive
through.
(And, just
> for the record, he wasn't on his knees.)
>
Just for the record, that scene was extensively rewritten. I would hope
GV
and MT had some input since both have real life experiences with troubled
marriages including people doing awful things while drunk. It was far,
far
better than the original script. Here are some of the stage directions,
directly quoted:
'He moves to her, he gets down on the ground at her feet.'
followed by:
'And now he's holding on around her legs, head in her lap.'
Luka's next line has this direction 'face buried, in pain'. He says:
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
The final stage directions are that 'they are both crying'. So, as
originally written, Luka was indeed down on the floor, head in her lap,
sobbing and apologizing. Anyone who wishes to see a copy of the original,
email me, and I'll be happy to offer proof.
I also noticed that Abby said she was sorry in the scene that aired, there
was no apology from her in the original script. Thank goodness someone
finally came to their senses. The original ****tion available didn't have
the part where we see that Luka is much more perceptive than Abby gives
him
credit for and that he already realizes that the drinking isn't the whole
story. Of course, Abby didn't come clean about her cheating, but it
doesn't
matter, he knows. The scene was far, far better after the rewrites. The
fact that GV sat next to her, wasn't even looking at her and was rather
impassive, made Luka look stronger and more like an equal to Abby than he
has in years. Maybe Daddy Kovac left him his balls in the will.
> I was also dreading Julia's "ER blessing ceremony" but that too
> worked amazingly well. I think the fact that it was not only handled
> seriously, but the characters/actors took it all seriously made it
> work. (One confusion though. Wasn't Julia talking about things that
> happened THIS year? So why were most of the 'patients who changed
> you' memories from season 12? (Of course ... S13 had almost no
> memorable stories.) And I could question whether Abby really WAS
> 'changed' in any way by (forget his name) her former prof with the
> degenerative disease. But, those are small quibbles.
Since Abby's former prof was never mentioned again, I presume she was not
changed one iota. It's not like she suddenly volunteered to help care for
him or that she stopped trying to force her will on patients and everyone
else around her. I thought the patient thing was OK, but wish we'd have
seen more from the early days as well as 'caregiver' shots of some of the
oldtimers. I suppose TPTB don't want to remind us of the days when this
show used to be good. I agree, the scenes with Julia, who I don't like,
were actually quite good and moving. Also very appropriate for a
Christmas
eppy.
>
> The patient storylines were pretty well handled, and both were new.
> (Unless you count the 'kid was stable, then crashed in the ER' stuff,
> but that's been done at least 1000 times since S1.) I found Sam's new
> Supernurse persona a bit hard to swallow. What ARE they teaching her
> in this 'trans****t' program? (And what is it? I missed the eppy
> where she started it.)
It really hasn't been clear what the 'trans****t' thing is about, but,
throughout the season, there has been an ongoing storyline with Sam
wanting
to stretch and grow as a nurse, that she is somewhat restless within the
confines of ER nursing. I welcome a personal storyline that is about
career
for her (or anyone else in the cast, for that matter). I'm tired of
Abby's
homelife and Pratt's gay brother, give me hospital based stuff every time.
I think that this might be an exit arc for LC eventually. It seems like
Sam
might be wanting to go back to school, I am hoping she does advanced
practice nursing since the show has already spent way more time on the
'nurse becomes a doctor' story and it is far less common.
>
> And one other question. It seems that very often we've been told that
> once a patient has been intubated, it requires quite a number of of
> legal hoops to jump through before he can be extubated, even if he has
> a clear DNR and/or family members want it done. So how were they able
> to extubate our emphysema lady so immediately?
>
A Christmas miracle? Part of the reason was she apparently had a DNR and
was also conscious and could confirm her wishes, I think.
> The 300 Patients concept was pretty well handled too. (Though, I
> dunno, was it 300 pateints in the day, or in 12 hours? If the former,
> it hardly seems excessive for a busy inner city ER.) Still my thought
> at the final bit was "You're going to need those winnings, Morris,
> when Frank has you arrested for assault and battery."
I hated that, it was not funny. Morris has made some real strides in
becoming a 3 dimensional character. Nobody would try to break someone's
hand to win a bet, not even him. And, it had to be '300 patients' because
it was the 300th eppy. And, yes, a big city ER with as many people on
duty
as County, would see that many and more most days.
snip
> These are not people who are likely to respond well to a chaplain like
> this.
>
Yep, the new agey, touchy feely stuff is not going to work in an inner
city
hospital serving a poor populace who are too busy trying to survive to be
looking into alternative religions. Chicago is also a meat and potatoes
type of town, Julia seems to have the sort of nebulous faith more commonly
seen on the West Coast.
> Sigh.... so it was actually a pretty good espisode. Still, with Luka
> presumably now gone for good, I don't know if I'm going to bother
> anymore. There is nothing else on the show that holds my interest
> anymore.
>
> Naomi
Happy Hannukah, Naomi!
Sharon
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