So it’s over.

ER is officially no more. So sad.

ER was a great show. It had a great cast, awesome storylines, and wicked scripting for most of it. It was on air for 15 seasons, 331 episodes, and managed to continually be one of the most watched shows on television. It did falter a bit in the last couple of years. For about 3 possibly 4 seasons things seemed to have dropped off. But as I mentioned before this season was great. They brought back good writings, intensity, and people you wanted to know about. But they let the ball drop again during this last episode.

I know doing a concluding episode is hard. Storylines have to be wrapped up and you still have to leave the audience with something to remember, wanting more. But they didn’t do that. The episode was boring. It was 2 hours of nothing. It started of pretty interesting. I thought to myself “Ok they are going to go out with a bang.” But after about 15 minutes it just became stagnant. They introduced new characters, well introduced is not really the right word, they had new people there as if they had been there all along. Through out the episode I kept asking, who is that?, and, why is Rory Gilmore playing doctor? 

They also brought back some old characters that I was extremely happy to see but then they gave them nothing to do. Carter made a speech at the opening of the Joshua Carter Centre which goes back to a story arc that ended about 6 seasons ago and everyone else just kinda stood there. They did have some small talk but no one revealed anything about themselves. We did know a little about Corday and Benton because they had been brought back in a few episodes before but nothing was revealed about Weaver or Lewis. They we just kind of there, they started talking about their kids and then they left.

The focus of the story in this episode was also wrong. They mainly focused on 3 storylines that just weren’t in the areas expected and they didn’t touch on storylines that really did need some closure. First it was about Rory, I call her that because I don’t remember her name from the episode. She seemed like a randomly placed “celebrity” that they dropped into the show. Second was the relationship between Sam, Dr. Gates, and their kids. That storyline was finished for the most part. They did give it a bit of depth but dwelled too long on them. Third was the opening of the Carter Centre which just dragged on.

They didn’t do things like touch on Dr Banfield’s newly formed family which had been an ongoing struggle through out this season. She actually didn’t appear until the last 10 minutes of the show. Archie’s story line was also ignored. The show started with him in a scene that came directly from the first episode of the show. Then he left after about 10 minutes. Then he returned in the last 10 minutes. His relationship with his possible “fiancé” wasn’t even mentioned. There was only 30 seconds possibly a minute of Neela via a web cam and all the interns were merely flashed upon.

The only time something exciting happened was in the last 3 minutes where they got a call about a trauma coming in. The entire cast congregated at the emergency door entrance preparing themselves for the task that they were about to undertake and the camera pulled away. They panned across everyone, the nurses, the interns, the doctors, then the bay doors, and, as the ambulances pulled in, the street and then the whole hospital. It was the first, last, and only time in the show where they showed the whole building like that. And it was a perfect way to end it.

But after all of that it was a let down. I was left unsatisfied. Up until this last episode the writing this season and been tight and passionate. You wanted to see more and I wondered why they were canceling this show. I do understand what they were trying to do. They were trying to illustrate that the show goes on even if we don’t get to see it. The ER doors will still slide open and they will continue to live on and save lives.

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