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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   30563 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 14, 2025

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I haven't seen this show, but all the praise being lavished on it makes me go "Really? Do none of you remember the likes of St. Elsewhere, for example, which also trod this path of 'slice of life reality in a hospital serving lower economic area'?"

St. Elsewhere is an American medical drama television series created by Joshua Brand and John Falsey that originally ran on NBC from October 26, 1982, to May 25, 1988. The series stars Ed Flanders, Norman Lloyd, and William Daniels as teaching doctors at an aging, run-down Boston hospital who give interns a promising future in making critical medical and life decisions. The series was produced by MTM Enterprises, which had success with a similar NBC series, the police drama Hill Street Blues, during that same time. The series were often compared to each other for their use of ensemble casts and overlapping serialized storylines (an original ad for St. Elsewhere quoted a critic that called the series "Hill Street Blues in a hospital").

Recognized for its gritty, realistic drama, St. Elsewhere gained a small yet loyal following (the series never ranked higher than 47th place in the yearly Nielsen ratings) over its six-season, 137-episode run; however, the series also found a strong audience in Nielsen's 18–49 age demographic, a demo later known as a young, affluent audience that TV advertisers were eager to reach. The series also earned critical acclaim during its run, earning 13 Emmy Awards for its writing, acting, and directing and is widely regarded as one of the greatest television shows of all time.

I haven't seen this show, but all the praise being lavished on it makes me go "Really? Do none of you remember the likes of St. Elsewhere, for example, which also trod this path of 'slice of life reality in a hospital serving lower economic area'?"

People don't watch old shows. They just empirically don't.

St. Elsewhere and its copy, ER (or was it ER that copied St. Elsewhere? I can't remember) were preachy at times and full of Very Special Episodes, but in the 80s and 90s conservatives could sometimes be depicted as sympathetic characters. (If they remade Family Ties, Alex Keaton would have to be a Never Trumper with a trans best friend, and West Wing would have to make all the Republican characters except the outright villains members of the Lincoln Project.)

I have to wonder if this is a part of the success formula for Big Bang Theory- Sheldon's mother may not be everyone's favorite, but she definitely has redeeming qualities and listening to her is usually a solution for the character's problems.

I haven't seen this show, but all the praise being lavished on it makes me go "Really? Do none of you remember the likes of St. Elsewhere, for example, which also trod this path of 'slice of life reality in a hospital serving lower economic area'?"

I hate to break it to you grandma, but that show's over forty years old now. I'll have to ask my mom if she's heard of it, she was fond of the odd medical drama that somehow found its way to India back then, though the odds are against it.

There's a shown on Apple TV called Berlin ER or something with a similar hospital context. But that's foreign, so.

Berlin ER or Krank Berlin as it should've been called since that's its name is a pretty good show that has the same sort of hectic pace and stays in the vein of only slight bits of story/personal lives away from the hospital.

It's doesn't have the constant woke injections like The Pitt but I'd say it still does the special bit of showing that cops are just as bad or worse than gang members thing by the end.

I was shocked at the show seemingly displaying the immigration demographics as they are (I assume, I'm not German). Much of the cast is brown/black and immigrant and most of the people coming into the hospital are as well. And for the first few episodes it felt like there wasn't going to be much of political angle at all but after much of the emergency room visits being immigrant gang members knifing each other I suppose maybe they had to have their cops beating innocent people because they're the wrong color part to not be accused of being racist. Either way it's pretty good but gets kinda washed out in the middle, treading water and extending plots over episodes when they could have wrapped up more quickly. But I think it finishes well, it's not many episodes anyway.

The medical accuracy felt much weaker but I don't know about German medical standards and the hospital in the show is supposed to be a piece of shit that barely runs so it's less about watching a well-oiled machine work like The Pitt and more about seeing how a hospital that has no real facilities, equipment, or staff to handle pretty much any medical situation muddles through. It does have much less insufferable characters and situations than The Pitt. But it also feels amateurish by comparison when showing the medical cases and treatments which is a shame.

Being that there > 100 episodes, it persisted in syndication for some time after it's initial run completed. I remember it on Nick at Night in the late 90's.

Denzel Washington - 137 episodes

"Really? Do none of you remember the likes of St. Elsewhere, for example, which also trod this path of 'slice of life reality in a hospital serving lower economic area'?"

No, few of those praising the show remember St. Elsewhere. Because they were born after St. Elsewhere ended.

That is the point I guess, all these kids not even born forty years ago imagine they've invented Liberal Media Talking-Points on TV shows for the first time 😁

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