Re: "ER" to end after next season

>That 'basement' is still on the upper floors of the NBC ratings pyramid.

That's hardly an accomplishment. And most of the other shows are not
far behind. If ER was on CBS or ABC, it likely would not still be
around.

>Those ratings were about two years behind where the show actually is,>
>which is largely on a creative upswing to a point where it hasn't been
>since just before Mark Greene developed his brain cancer and the show
>immediately bellyflopped into a turgid soup of awfulness never seen
>(since . . . well, Passions that afternoon.  Ba-dum-bum-pssssh!)

There is nothing in this black hole of misery and disaster that
resembles anything approaching a creative upswing.

Also, in no way does the show hold up today as "one of the greatest
shows of all time". It was a fabulous show a very long time ago, and
you could call that show a classic, but The Luby Hour? Not so much.

The truth is that The Luby Hour drove viewers away in droves. That
particular plotline brought ER from 20 million viewers to 8 million in
about two years, and during the latter year ER was given more
publicity than it had seen in nearly a decade due to its
"improved" (as in not-yet-declining-from-the-year-before) ratings. The
Luby wedding was the lowest rated original episode the show had ever
had. Yet anyone in the media who still writes about the show seems to
think it's the pinnacle of the past 15 years. The thing that killed
the show will be seen as its great accomplishment. That's what's
really pathetic.

Of course, what else could the writers do but Luby redux? Everybody
else with a fanbase (except Kerry, and she was gone soon enough) left.
They could either do it or cancel the show. They should have done the
latter.