Goodbye ER, I'll miss you

Last night marked the end of 15 seasons full of laughter, tears, relationships, deaths and some cheesiness thrown in on the side. The folks of the Chicago County General ER will no longer be guests in my livingroom on Thursday nights and for that I am a little sad.

I started watching ER when it started. Not to date myself, but I was in junior high school when it started. That was the first late night show I was allowed to stay up for, but not on a regular basis.

It was great to start out this final episode weaving new characters into the original ER theme song. I always fast forward through the opening credits these days and forgot how catchy the theme song was. I always love the part when Dr. Benton is doing some sort of Karate in the hallway.

After watching last nights finale, my roommate and I concurred that we were glad they didn't do some super cheesy ending (ie: helicopter falling off the roof and killing everyone). I liked that the show ended with just another day in the ER. I thought it was a bit odd that they would introduce a new character (Alexis Bledel as Julia Wise) in the finale, but found myself wishing that she had been introduced as a regular character earlier.

Looking back at some of the Season 1 synopsis on IMDB there isn't really a lot I remember. In fact I only recognize storylines with regularity during Season 5 when 3rd year med student Lucy (Kellie Martin) joined the show. I'm now looking forward to getting to know my ER friends all over again by starting over from the beginning.

Do you have any fond memories of ER? Did you stick with it until the end or did you tune out at some point? If you tuned out, did you at least watch the series finale?

Thursday night rundown

Since I didn't have it in me to take copious notes while watching my Thursday night lineup, I shall just put down some general thoughts on the night.

UGLY BETTY
My Thursday night heart warming and laughter show is Ugly Betty. This show can always provide me with a smile and the premiere tonight was no exception. After taking a trip to discover herself Betty returned with some life goals:

1. Take on more responsibility at work. Well, this would have been fine and dandy if it weren't for the fact that Daniel got the ax from Mode and is now the EIC of Player magazine. Between the grunts, cat calls and boo's of her coworkers, I sure wouldn't want to take on any more responsibility, I'd want to walk right back out the door. But Betty prevails and is put in charge of an event for the Players girls on Harley's. When one girl goes on, Betty steps up in her place and lands in a pool of what can only be described as jelly?
   
2. Get her own apartment in the city. As someone who has scoured Craigslist for apartments in NYC, I will vouch that this is no simple tasking, but a good goal to set. I wish I could do some follow through on my searches. This goal lands Betty a rundown (to put it mildly) apartment with a view of two geriatric nudists and a loud neighbor. But when her family joins in they spruce the place up like new. Ah, the wonders of TV.
   
3. Avoid romantic yadda, yadda, yadda, entanglements, yadda, yadda. This episode was light on the romance until the last five minutes when Betty introduces herself to her cute? neighbor, whose name escapes me (darn the no note taking).

Oh, and did I mention Lindsey Lohan is Ignacio's boss at the burger joint? There's a laugh right there for ya. I also had a laugh at the clothes Betty wore in this episode. I don't consider myself a huge fashionista, but I do recognize a few designer outfits here and there. In this episode, when Betty was flung into the pool of jelly, she was wearing the pink version of the same dress Blaire Waldorf wore in the season premiere of Gossip Girl when she was riding bikes with Lord Marcus and walking in town with Serena. I noticed because I LOVED the dress on Gossip Girl. Here are the pictures below.

CW.com and Popcrunch.com

GREY'S ANATOMY
Thank GOD for DVRs and being able to fast forward through commercials. As my roommate pointed out, there was a commercial like every 20 seconds in this premiere. Might as well have made it only an hour premiere because the other hour was all commercials!

After building Derek a house of candles, Meredith keeps having dreams that Derek gets in a car accident and dies. Hmmm, take a clue much sweetie? Flirting between Alex and Izzie, flirting between George and Little Meredith. Awkwardness after the season finale lesbian kiss between Erica and Callie, gee, what a surprise.

I got very excited when Dan from Journeyman showed up as military trauma surgeon Major Hunt whose bad ass moves equally impresses and turns on Cristina, who, after telling Meredith that things probably won't work out with she and Derek if they move in together, slips and falls on black ice then gets impaled by a falling icicle. Oh the laughter had there. Only on Grey's.

Somewhere in there was also a car accident (two actually), an affair, a lying husband, a slip in rank from No. 1 teaching hospital to No. 12, getting staples in the leg without any numbing.... I think that about covers the two hours pretty well.

ER
I was about to be pissed at NBC for teasing something that didn't happen. But lo and behold, it did happen, eventually. A fan favorite died. No matter what I was going to be sad at whoever they killed off the show, but I think I would have rather it been Sam. I loved Pratt. He was the doctor with just enough a$$hole in his system to keep people respecting him, but was really deep down a giant teddy bear. Anyway, I'm usually pretty good at shedding tear when watching this show and tonight I followed suit... so much so that I needed a Kleenex at one point. I held it all in until Pratt himself started crying on the show. Even though there seems to be a big character turnover from season to season, this has always been a really well acted show and I guess that's why it's lasted so many seasons.

I don't really have much else to comment on for ER other than it was a good start to their final season. I look forward to bidding ER a proper goodbye.