This was an era of the doctor as demigod. "Marcus Welby, M.D.," also on ABC, rounded out the team in 1969, with Robert Young bringing to the title role the same gentle authority he wielded on "Father Knows Best." Four days later, Vince Edwards brought "Ben Casey" to ABC. Kildare," starring Richard Chamberlain, debuted on NBC in 1961. This was the decade that introduced a bright and shining trio of the most perfect, caring, compassionate healers you could ever hope to meet, even in a time before the HMO. Saint elsewhere cast tv#The first medical TV shows appeared in the early 1950s, but it was in the 1960s that the form was really established. It's hard to imagine the doctor shows of yesterday attempting to pull off what "Grey's" can. The show has become the thinking person's soap opera, "The O.C." for big kids. Now in its third season and thriving on Thursday, TV's most competitive night, simmering stories have begun to boil. "Surgery has downtime, space for breathing." "In the emergency room there is no down time," Beers said. One thing that differentiates "Grey's Anatomy" from its predecessors, Beers said, is that it's about surgical interns. In "Grey's" there's a core of young interns under the guidance of more experienced medical tyrants within these characters, ego and libido battle with Hippocratic commitments in highly satisfying ways. Elsewhere," said co-executive producer Betsy Beers. Elsewhere" and "ER," though creator Shonda Rhimes has never seen "St. "Grey's Anatomy" follows in the footsteps of "St. This is made possible, Sachs said, by sets, cameras and digital editing systems that accommodate intensely frenetic shots and editing. More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that "ER" moves faster than a speeding bullet. "There are physicians on the writing staff," he said, "and not just as consultants. Joe Sachs, an executive producer and writer on "ER" who's a former emergency room doctor himself, said the show delivers the illusion that viewers are seeing the inner workings of an urban emergency room. Elsewhere" at its best had become postmodernist theater of the absurd, "ER" was about doctors. Although critics loved the show, it never achieved real ratings success over its six-year run.īut "ER," which premiered in 1994, juiced up the formula, quickly achieving the star status that eluded its predecessor. Elsewhere" was a literary achievement, filled with sophisticated dialogue, complex stories and an attention to narrative detail never before seen in a TV series. Saint elsewhere cast full#Wayne Fiscus (Howie Mandel, with a full head of hair) - continue to be echoed in characters on current hospital shows. Phillip Chandler (Denzel Washington) to the comic Dr. Eligius Hospital - from the righteously serious Dr. Elsewhere's" acerbic but brilliant Mark Craig (William Daniels). The title character in "House" (Hugh Laurie) owes his existence to "St. They were flawed, they made mistakes and their patients didn't always get better. The personal lives of the doctors were as important as the jobs they were doing. Elsewhere" did to medical dramas what "Hill Street Blues" did to police shows: It crowded the screen with a large ensemble cast, padded the script with a bewildering number of ongoing stories and introduced human flaws to a breed of professionals that television previously had presented as super-human. Its first season was released recently on DVD. Elsewhere," an NBC hospital drama that debuted in 1982 and radically redefined the TV doctor. Miranda Bailey of "Grey's," whom colleagues call "the Nazi." Something happened between "Marcus Welby, M.D.," whose title character was a model of paternal perfection, and Dr. "Grey's Anatomy," one of TV's top-rated programs, combines the format and pacing of "ER" with the stylized urban romance and hyper-analytical narration of "Sex and the City." But doctor shows didn't always look and sound so bold. Is it any wonder the doctor show is one of the most enduring genres on American television? Smart people work long hours under heavy pressure, patients provide a never-ending supply of life-or-death situations, and the overnight on-call rooms turn the place into a hotel of sorts, an ideal microcosm for a roiling cauldron of serialized melodrama. A hospital is a perfect setting for a TV show.
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