Let’s talk about St. Elsewhere

Nope. Don't watch noble doctor shows or noble lawyer shows.

Yes. I liked it.

Great, Great show. When the writing is so good that even Howie Mandell shines you know you have something special.

Loved Erlich, Dr.Craig, Nurse Lucy and hapless Dr.Jack Morrison.

Astounding on all levels, outshining all other dramas of the 80s. Never won best drama Emmy, shockingly, but some deserved acting and writing awards, with tons of competing nominations. A great show.

All a child's imagination.

Fantastic show with great ending.

Was young when St. Elsewhere ran but still recall the series with fond memories.

Opening was great as well

I was in my early teens when this was on, but I enjoyed it. I had a crush on David Morse. I should rewatch..is it streaming?

What touched me about St. Elsewhere is the realness of the gritty drama.

In 1980's all over USA, Boston, New York City, San Francisco, etc... you had these big old barns of hospitals that whatever once they served, now were located in often urban areas largely serving working to lower classes with a smattering of middle.

Often built decades ago these places were to various degrees falling apart. But funds were tight and it was often all that could be done to keep things going. What you did usually have was a dedicated staff that gave their best under the circumstances.

Guess you could compare Saint Vincent's in Greenwich Village as a real life Saint Elsewhere. By the 1980's Saint Vincent's like fictional St. Elsewhere was fast becoming a "dumping ground", or "hospital of last resort", or worse a "charity care" hospital.

Alfre Woodard!

Great cast and even better writing. I haven’t seen it in syndication or streaming though. I love to watch it again.

Cast reunion..

R8

It is now....

"As of June 2021, all six seasons of the series are available for streaming on Hulu."

WEHT Terence Knox and Ellen Bry? Kavi Raz? Did they ever work again?

Kavi Raz has worked extensively since St. Elsewhere.

Same for Ellen Bry and Terence Knox. It's all out there on their IMDb pages and other resources.

St. Elsewhere was the Father of ALL those HOSPITAL shows that came after it ( and BETTER)- ER, Chicago Hope and the Grey's Anatomy- which I never liked. I tried watching some episodes from the early seasons. They have songs with woman and men singing during serious operations for background effect- it was intrusive and AWFUL. The music track on St. Elsewhere was much quieter and respectful of the scenes.

[quote] Nope. Don't watch noble doctor shows or noble lawyer shows.

Doesn't apply here. But, you do you.

The sensibilities of St. Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues were so similar, it's hard to believe the shows didn't have the same writers and producers. Did they?

No, r19. Hill Street Blues was a Steven Bochco production. St. Elsewhere was from Brand-Falsey. Bruce Paltrow was another writer and executive producer on St. Elsewhere. Both appeared on NBC during most of the 1980s.

Both"Hill St" and "Elsewhere" came from MTM.

LOU GRANT (CBS), from MTM had also a realistic appeal to me. Different setting (newspaper) but open for everything that's wrong in society. The producers James L. Brooks' and Allan Burns' decision to create a drama instead of a sitcom around Lou Grant's character in 1977 was inspired by the 1976 film ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN.

Spoiler:

Because of how St Elsewhere ended as the fantasies of an autistic child, that means also these shows were part of the same fantasy. ALL of which crossed over with St Elsewhere or with shows that did.

The White Shadow Warren Coolidge from The White Shadow is also a character in St. Elsewhere.

Cheers St. Elsewhere has a crossover with Cheers in the episode "Cheers".

The Bob Newhart Show Elliot Carlin from The Bob Newhart Show appears in the St. Elsewhere episode "Close Encounters".

M*A*S*H Dr. B.J. Hunnicut from M*A*S*H is mentioned in "Santa Claus is Dead"

Tattingers Kenny Axelrod from Tattingers "The Sonny Also Rises" mentions he is a cousin of Dr. Elliot Axelrod.

Chicago Hope Dr. Kathryn Austin won the Cushing Left Anterior Descending Artery Award in Chicago Hope "Women on the Verge". Dr Mark Craig won it in "Samuels and the Kid".

Homicide: Life on the Street Dr. Roxanne Turner, who appeared in 13 episodes of St. Elsewhere from 1985 to 1988, appeared in the Homicide: Life on the Street episode "Mercy".

Oz (HBO) In Oz "A Day in the Death", it is found that R.N. Carol Grace worked at St. Eligius. Also, the Oswald State Correctional Facility is owned by Weigert, the company that took over St. Eligius Hospital.

Method & Red Warren Coolidge appears in Method & Red "Da Shootout"

And with Homicide already linked, that means the Detective John Munch appearances further connect Arrested Development, The X-Files, Law & Order, and The Wire.

ps -- They never allow the original MTM logo shot for the finale to be rebroadcast.

Yum Terrence Knox

Oh please, this show had the mansplaining old white "men of wisdom". Some of the episodes were so condescending to women and minorities.

Give an example, r25.

Did it ever occur to you that the TV was just always on in the apartment where the autistic kid lived, r23, and that's why characters from other shows would sometimes show up at the hospital?

Also, r23 (Mimsie), Mark Craig mentioned one of his fellow Penn med students a few times, one Dr. David Domedion. There was a producer by that name at As the World Turns for most of the time I watched it.

Anybody remember me?

Don't forget us!

[quote]Alfre Woodard!

And a very young Denzel; they had great chemistry. In retrospect, it was surprising she never became a bigger star because she was every bit as good on that show as he was. I liked the head nurse (Helen Rosenthal) who had all the personal problems & the story line about the rapist doctor was interesting because it's the first show I can remember in which a predator was a known person & not some creepy outsider

I was surprised to read in the oral history of St. Elsewhere

That Ed Flanders was a mean, old DRUNK behind the scenes. He was so intoxicated most of the time, producers were forced to re-arrange the shooting schedule so all of Flanders scenes were filmed in the morning. Because by the time the afternoon would roll around, Flanders would be so wasted, you couldn't depend on him

And he was MEAN. So mean and nasty, that by season five producers had enough and fired him. Flanders was a very unhappy man, who committed suicide years later.

I liked it, but thought less of the producers for having a straight doctor be the one who got AIDS. Beautiful as Mark Harmon was, watching each episode pissed me off so much I eventually stopped. I mean, did they not have any idea what was really going on out there?

R33 in season one they did a storyline about a closeted politician (married with a wife) who got AIDS

By 1985 (Mark Harmon), they wanted to depict that anyone could get the disease, that this wasn't a "gay" disease.

And they did feature another storyline in season 6, about a gay man being infected. That story ran over several episodes.

One of the best, if not THE best, medical dramas ever on television. The only show that comes close to its ensemble cast now is "New Amsterdam". However, it should have ended when the producers expected it to end, after season 5, when the last shot was that of Norman Lloyd, dressed as Superman, as the wrecking ball comes crashing in. Season 6 was just a parody of the show.

The episode with Betty White guest-starring as a military doctor, as John Doe #1 thinks she's Sue Ann Nivens, is a classic.

Like earlier medical shows that tried for realism like Ben Casey, the plot lines could get silly ormedlodramatic and go beyond the norms of medical practice, but it was the show that helped re-establish the medical show and the cast was outstanding.

Loved it.

Loved the episode that featured Bring me the Head of Bill Belvedere.

Loved the Cushing Left Anterior Descending Artery Award.

My only complaint was that it wasn't very Bostonian.

I never watched it but just looked at the cast list on its IMDB profile. Who WASN'T on this fucking show?

I was a huge fan when it first aired, watched the reruns on WGN in the early 90s, bought all the VHS tapes, bought the DVD, binged it recently. It is great.

[quote] I liked the head nurse (Helen Rosenthal)

Played by Christina Pickles, who was the "longtime companion" of Herb Edelman (Stan Zbornak.)

One of Nurse Rosenthal's children was played by All My Children's, As the World Turns' and now day of Our Lives' Cady McClain.

[quote]And he was MEAN. So mean and nasty, that by season five producers had enough and fired him. Flanders was a very unhappy man, who committed suicide years later.

That's terrible - I didn't know that. He played the kindly old doctor with the terrible personal life

Another fan of this great show. But the Mark Harmon AIDS storyline was a clinker, as straight men weren’t really at risk engaging in heterosexual sex.

[quote] But the Mark Harmon AIDS storyline was a clinker, as straight men weren’t really at risk engaging in heterosexual sex.

His character was sleeping with a different woman every week!

Mark Harmon looked SNAZZY with that mustache.

R28- Mark Craig the character ( and the actor that played him ) seem GAY.

SEEMED not seem

Robin Baskins

It is was if those prestigious, critically acclaimed, won tons of Emny type shows that was actually very soapy and had serialized/soap type storylines mixed in with self contained stories

It waa very clever and Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey and Thirtysomething all did the same thing, let's copy from the big nighttime soaps (Dallas, Dynasty, Knots Landing , Falcon Crest etc), by having soap opera continuing storylines mixed in but WE'RE NOT A NIGHTTIME SOAP OPERA

In the 90s acclaimed dramas like Sisters, NYPD Blue, ER pulled the same shit

I remember an interview with one of the producers of ER around 1998 or so and he said, "We have continuing stories and some soapy elements but we're not a nighttime soap opera, like Beverly Hills 90210 or Melrose Place. I mean ER has won scores of Emmy's, nighttime soaps don't win Emmy's"

I always thought these kind of shows were very condescending and "I'm so much better than you"

The writers got a lot of stuff past the censors. I remember the storyline about the fat nurse who had a Swiss husband who was a chocolatier--and she had a line about how he like to help his workers pack the fudge.

R7 The theme really reminds me of Bill Cont's worki, but it is in fact by Academy Award winning composer Dave Gruisin ("The Milagro Bean Field War", & "On Golden Pond"). Anyway, I love it.

[quote] His character was sleeping with a different woman every week!

Even if he was (just) sleeping with a different woman every hour, he wasn't at risk of HIV.

*Bill Conti's work

R53 Didn't he get it from a hooker? He was a total whore, so yes, he could get it. That scene in front of the mirror after he had had his face slashed, great work from Harmon.

R55, if he got it from straight sex with a woman he would join Magic Johnson (ahem) as the only straight males who got it from heterosexual sex.

Bobby Caldwell could have gotten hiv any number of ways including transfusion. The writers gave it to him not because he was straight but because Harmon was feuding with producers and they agreed to write him out.

Later on another doctor had an hiv scare due to a needle poke.

I used to think the scripts were written by a horny 15 year old boy. Constant focus on the sex lives of the characters. Typical of American television in the Eighties.

For most of its run, everything about it was topnotch.

Indeed, r58. Grey's Anatomy and Chicago Med never consider the sex lives of their characters. Nor did E.R. or Chicago Hope.

[quote]R25 Oh please, this show had the mansplaining old white "men of wisdom". Some of the episodes were so condescending to women and minorities.

[quote]R26 Give an example

Do you notice that OP’s season 1 opening credits feature 10 actors vs. only 2 actresses?

That should give you a clue.

[quote] Even if he was (just) sleeping with a different woman every hour, he wasn't at risk of HIV.

Every person you are sleeping with, you are also sleeping with every person they are sleeping with.

[quote]Oh please, this show had the mansplaining old white "men of wisdom". Some of the episodes were so condescending to women and minorities.

At least it didn't have characters who speak fluent Douche, using words like "mansplaining."

R61 Ha, the women were great. Boomer getting raped in prison was fucking incredible.

It was brilliant; the finest show of the 1980s. My favorite characters were Dr. Craig and his wife, Ellen.

St. Elsewhere is my all time favorite show.

I'm going to re-up my Hulu subscription so I can bingewatch St. Elsewhere.

R65 Remember when his coke addled son crashed the car and killed his family? Good times.

I watched St. Elsewhere when I was in high school, and I loved the show. It was a bit gritty and quirky, and it had interesting characters. I did not have a favorite character, but I really liked Eric Laneuville, who played Luther, the orderly. He was such a cutie. R19, I agree. I always got the impression that the show was created or produced by the same people who did Hill Street Blues.

The unraveling of the Craig’s marriage was so brilliantly done and acted. There was a grimness and darkness about this show that really captured the spirit of the ‘80s for me.

Shaint Elshewhere! I like the shound of it.

Terence Knox was gorgeous! They don’t make guys like him anymore.

Howie was cute back then too.

Cynthia Sikes still looks great today.

Cynthia and Denzel promoting St. Elsewhere.

[quote] The unraveling of the Craig’s marriage was so brilliantly done and acted.

Like the plot of my book, "So Dark the Waves on Biscayne Bay."

R50: Sisters was never acclaimed, it wa spure soap suds. St Elsewhere was never as saturated with scenery chewing as Falcon Crest et al. The writing on NYPD often was very clever, the true soaps never were.

New York City native William Daniels is still with us (aged 94)!

As Dr. Mark Craig always thought is Bostonian Brahmin accent was put on, but then caught him on an episode of Cannon with same. Don't know how a guy born in East New York, NY developed such an accent, but it worked for him.

Dr. Mark Craig was like so many other what some would consider total AH doctors of the time. As chief of staff or chief of department these supremely skilled and competent doctors often were arrogant SOBs that would reduce nurses, residents, interns and anyone else to tears with just a few words.

But they knew their shit (even if sometimes a bit over confident), and easily could take positions at a top hospital. But many often remained at charity, municipal, or other such places lower on medical totem pole for various reasons. One was because despite their often arrogant manner there was genuine love for the medical profession, patients and those old barns of hospitals.

Yes, they tore people down, but it was often done out of caring. They knew you weren't giving 100% and could do better, but also understood by taking care of the little things, big things would take care of themselves.

Dr. Craig certainly was one of those "condescending" autocratic physicians. It cost him personal and private relationships including his only son who became a drug addict, dies and Dr. Craig witnesses the autopsy.

[quote] Sisters was never acclaimed,

Sela Ward's Emmy says otherwise

I liked the show, but it seemed like the writers overdid the tragedies that happened to David Morse’s character. His wife died, his son was kidnapped, he was raped, etc.

Nowadays, Dr. Craig would be canceled for being too mean and not taking young interns feelings into account!

It’s hard to realize that less than 40 years ago, there were really no female doctors, or POC as physicians in a white hospital . It was a white male dominated job, which allowed even more of a feeling of superiority and God-like attitude. The writers captured that period.

R78, hello?

R78 Alfre and Denzel and Cynthia and the seven other female doctor characters are side eyeing you.

Barbara Whinnery (Dr. Cathy Martin) was one year behind me in high school, but I barely remember her--either in high school or on the show.

Don’t forget about me, R76, Bonnie Bartlett, still kicking at 92. I played Dr. Craig's wife on TV and in real life, but you probably know me best from my memorable role as Dorothy's literary friend BARBARA THORNDYKE.

R81 She was the Coroner who liked fucking Howie in the morgue. She was raped and shot her rapist after he was revealed. She was soft spoken. Good character.

In the fourth season the cast was trimmed down where Christina Pickles was the only female cast member in the opening credits

Re: all you need to know about the point of view of that show is in the OP’s opening credits.

Again, 10 of the 12 lead performers are men. That doesn’t mean they’ll just get almost all the screen time, but as a group they’re getting almost all the pay.

So, we see how the deck is stacked.

This.

In many ways St. Elsewhere was more modern than some other hospital dramas of period.

Yes, there weren't tons of female doctors (or even post graduates), but women were just beginning in 1980's to enter med schools in greater numbers. So it wouldn't be until 1990's and afterwards you really started to see them "everywhere".

St. Elsewhere's nurses still wore whites, but unlike some soap operas or other medical dramas on television as in real life they ditched caps.

Sexual harassment of nurses was rampant, and the show had that covered as well.

I worked in a hospital during the St Elsewhere years, and yes there were very few female physicians and residents then, nurses had pretty much ditched their white uniforms and caps, but the doctors still wore suits or at least jackets and ties, and the male residents were required to wear shirts, ties, and white pants (yum).

Women did not graduate from med school in large numbers until the mid-to-late 80s. I've known a lot of women who graduated then and even though the numbers were large enough to give them female colleagues overall, they often were the only woman in their practice, department, etc. for quite awhile.

Specialty hospitals and wards like those for psych began ditching the nurses' caps and even whites in the 70s, but it was a slow process.

More women didn't get into the pipeline to become doctors until Title IX and other anti-discrimination measures enacted in 1970's really began to bite.

For generations female in high school and college were shunted away from the science and math classes required for medical schools. Any young woman who had inclinations towards the medical profession (including daughters of doctors) were fobbed off by being pointed towards nursing school.

Medicine was a "man's" profession so it went. And young women who did stand their ground often got "you'll be taking the place of some young man, do you want that to happen?".

Many of the females who did manage to become doctors (both by 1980's or before) often were far worse to deal with than the men. Nurses in droves usually always preferred dealing with male doctors than females. Am not saying all female physicians were bitches, but nice ones were few and far between it seemed in those days.

Part of it was the pure hell female med students went through. Many med schools that admitted women (either before anti-discrimination laws were passed or after) did so in a passive aggressive manner. To prove they could tough it out many female med students and post graduates didn't go running to the courts or whoever crying "they're being mean to me..".

Late Elaine Stritch played a bitch surgeon on Trapper John, M.D. who got her panties in a bunch over the new advanced placement nurses that began to arrive in hospitals by 1980's. Many of female nurses thought lady doctors would be on their side by virtue of sex alone; well they thought wrong.

Speaking of "Trapper John, MD", don't forget me!

The show was called St. Elsewhere, not St. Elsewhere’s Doctors Lounge. Even if there were predominantly male doctors then, there was no need to make the starring roles 5/6 male.

Florence Halop (Mrs. Hufnagel on Saint Elsewhere), had a long and varied career. Her last role was as the bailiff on Night Court .

Billy Halop (Florence's brother) grew up to be a very good looking young man. Most likely would remember him in one of his final acting roles as Bert Munson in "All In The Family"

R94, did he ever have any nude scenes?

Every hospital then and now has their own "Mrs. Hufnagel", though term used nowadays is frequent flier...

However unlike St. Elsewhere's writers who milked Mrs. Hufnagel for all they could over many episodes, in real world either such a patient would have gotten better and remained out of hospital. Or died of their illness or various co- morbidities and not seen again.

Private insurance, Medicare and Medicaid being what they are today frequent fliers may show up at an ER or whatever, but they wouldn't be routinely re-admitted again and again. A hospital gets dinged for things like that, so every effort is made to find out exactly what is going on and either cure or manage it.

[quote]She was the Coroner who liked fucking Howie in the morgue.

Did they do anal?

Only with the corpses, r97.

R93- Oh, I see. You listened to the duo live on the radio when you were a kid.

R99

Actually no I didn't wasn't even around then (neither were my parents). But do know "East End Kids" from television broadcasts of their old films or whatever.

They also used to be known as GOMERs (Get Out of My Emergency Room) from "the House of God", a novel read by med students (and other professionals in the 70s and 80s).

R65- The actor who played their son was VERY good looking.

[quote] Do you notice that OP’s season 1 opening credits feature 10 actors vs. only 2 actresses? That should give you a clue.

So, no actual evidence to back up your claims, then?

On what streaming service can one binge it?

R100-Billy Halop looked so FUCKIN OLD when he played Mr. Munson on All In The Family in the 1970's. He was only in his early 50's when he first started appearing on the show.

R105

Much of that aging was good make-up....

That being said Billy Halop had two heart attacks before undergoing open heart surgery in 1971. He died November 9, 1976, in Hollywood at the age of 56 of a heart attack. Thus it seems in last decade or so of his life Mr. Hallop wasn't exactly a well man. He worked still (All In The Family until 1975), but there may have been things going on with his health that made him look older than he should.

Oh forgot, Billy Hallop's Wiki page mentions he had a pretty longstanding drinking problem. That often causes people to age prematurely if they don't take care of themselves, and few drunks do...

R107- Like you or someone else said - He was SO good looking when he was a young guy. Smoking ages a person too. Perhaps that's why Bette Davis looked so FUCKIN OLD when she appeared in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane. I saw that movie back in 1978 on the 4:30 Movie on Channel 7 in Ne York. I was 12 years old and too young too find it campy or even to know what that meant. It was horrifying to me then. The worst part was seeing Blanche being served that RAT for lunch.

[quote]On what streaming service can one binge it?

Someone upthread said Hulu.

I can't believe someone is on this thread trying to cancel St. Elsewhere.

Shut the fuck up, bitch!

R110- He trying to impose 21st century sensibilities on a late 20th century show.

R24- He was good looking but a little too BEEFY for my taste.

Think St Elsewhere was the first time I came across Marion Mercer. She played Eve, a wonderful woman who needed a heart transplant. She was on for a while, Mark Craig adored her. And then she died. The scene of William Daniels overcome with grief, but refusing to admit to it, breath taking acting. And then when Fiscus died and went to heaven, she turned up. Boy, that was a good episode. He was so shocked rapist Dr White was in heaven.

Golly, what a show!

David Birney who was only on one season of St Elsewhere- now HE was more my type than Terence Knox.

Birney was slim and good looking.

I didn’t realize GW Bailey was on the first season. Why did he leave?

Let's not forget Miss Lainie Kazan as Frieda Fiscus!

List of producers: Mark Tinker, Bruce Paltrow, David Anspaugh

Weird edit, R117. Anspaugh directed a few episodes but he was not an important person on the show.

The main producers were Bruce Paltrow, Mark Tinker, Tom Fontana, John Masius, Joshua Brand and John Falsey.

Fontana went on to create and produce Homicide and Oz. Brand and Falsey did Northern Exposure. Mark Tinker produced NYPD Blue, Deadwood and some others. Masius did a bunch of other shows, mostly mediocre.

I loved "St. Elsewhere," but agree with the earlier poster that there was nothing remotely Bostonian about the series. No one in the cast even attempted a local accent.

Now here's some trivia for ya. Kitchen scenes often featured a box of sugar on the tables. It was always the C&H brand, which is exclusively sold in the western U.S. I grew up in the Boston area and always knew that the only brand of sugar available in local supermarkets was the Domino's brand, in the signature yellow packages. Of course, the Californian set dressers likely never dug deep enough in their research to know about sugar. Apparently, the Mississippi River is the dividing line for the industry. Domino's has exclusivity in the eastern U.S., while C&H gets the West.

[quote]No one in the cast even attempted a local accent.

This didn't bother me, because it was established that most of the staff were—to use a heated DL term—transplants. Ehrlich came from Hawaii, Rosenthal grew up in the UK, Morrison Seattle, Chandler Chicago, etc.

It made sense because doctors go where the job offers are.

Was any character other than Westphall established to have grown up in Boston and therefore susceptible to a native accent?

R115 After the first season they moved away from the Pysch ward. One of the 'things' at the start of the show was the misdirect that bailey was a patient, not a Dr.

I remember being shocked when the Asian woman doctor killed herself. She was a series regular.

They seemed to dump their female cast members. Ellen Bry was so good once her character went crazy. I remember when she killed Terrence Knox. She called in a code blue "in the morgue" and then walked out the door into a foggy night.

Odd that she was written out since she married one of the writers/producers.

They dumped the weakest actors.

If you go back and watch it objectively, Kim Miyori, Ellen Bry, Terence Knox, and Cynthia Sikes were stiff as boards—just not good actors at all.

When Ed Begley Jr. and Howie Mandel are more believable as fully inhabited characters, you've got problems.

There was a while there where they hardly had any women in the opening credits.

One character I really liked was when Karen Austin was brought in as the new head of the ER, Mary Woodley.

It was the season when Cynthia Sikes refused to do a planned lesbian storyline because of her love of Jesus, so the producers rewrote the storyline and brought in some female guest stars as potential replacements for her character.

Austin was great but disappeared after four episodes. She got a raw deal from NBC; she was in the original cast of Night Court but got dumped after their first short season.

R124=Yashar Ali

Billy Halop took Judy Garland's virginity.

I remember the show fondly from childhood and have binged it on Hulu during the pandemic.

What struck me is how well it holds up today, and how much about medicine has not changed. It's so much grappling in the dark.

Current medical shows like Good Doctor and New Amsterdam—which I keep giving chances; I don't know why—are just melodramatic garbage that can't compete with St. Elsewhere's writing and acting.

[quote]It was the season when Cynthia Sikes refused to do a planned lesbian storyline because of her love of Jesus, so the producers rewrote the storyline and brought in some female guest stars as potential replacements for her character.

Oh I didn’t know that. But not surprised. Honestly, I always got Christian Republican vibes from her, so I’m not surprised.

Well, I am so happy to find out I was wrong assuming she was a Republican - according to this, she’s a Democrat.🙂. Whew! Glad to know because I always liked her.

R24, I loved him as "Sarge" in "Tour of Duty." (Post-"St. Elsewhere.")

[quote]Remember when his coke addled son crashed the car and killed his family? Good times.

Ah, I remember that storyline - I bawled when the son died & the wife fell apart before the funeral, but then later, it's Craig that can't move past the death of his son. Craig was a great character

R129/R130, but she did, in fact, refuse to do the planned lesbian storyline because of her religion.

One account of this in Brandon Tartikoff's autobiography.

R129 there are TONS of women and men who are Democrat, some are even athiest, who wouldn't do a sane sex love scene or storyline

TONS

DL needs to move away from the "Only Christians are homophobes " crap. It makes gay men look REALLY dumb and out of touch

I can name 10 people I know off the bat

R134 except Cynthia Sikes, Miss Kansas, whom we're discussing here, told the St. Elsewhere producers she wouldn't do the storyline because it was against her religious beliefs.

When they pushed back, she went above their heads and cried in the office of Brandon Tartikoff, the head of NBC, that she couldn't do the storyline because it was against her religious beliefs. This was in Brandon Tartikoff's autobiography and the St. Elsewhere producers will confirm it.

That was her last season on the show. Honestly, she was no loss–Rosenthal stepped up as the female heart of the show and Cindy Pickett, who came on as a doctor thereafter, was a better actress.

[quote] He was good looking but a little too BEEFY for my taste.

Watch the first season. He was quite slim then and they had him in tight tees.

There was a funny scene where Dr. Craig is helping Dr. Westphall look for a house and the real estate agent thinks they're a couple because Craig is sniping at every little detail during a tour.

[quote]R110 I can't believe someone is on this thread trying to cancel St. Elsewhere. Shut the fuck up, bitch!

No one’s suggested “cancelling” it, you hysteric. We’re just discussing how endlessly male-oriented it was with its leading roles.

R138 We're not, you are.

No - they’re not all from me. And there’s just been a few posts on the subject.

Again, calm your hysteria. Please.

R134 Exactly! Who gives a damn if she didn’t feel comfortable doing a lesbian storyline? Not everyone is going to feel comfortable doing that personally. Doesn’t mean they’re a bad person or not supportive of people who are. Plus, remember this was early 80’s. Playing LGBT characters was still considered very controversial back then and actors who played those characters often times got a lot of pushback from the public, so maybe she didn’t want to deal with all that. It was a different time.

[quote]r141 It was a different time.

Yes. A time when 10 out of the 12 leading characters were men.

R142 You seem tiresome.

And actresses seem underemployed on that show.

Erlich...

R138

Which was normal for medicine in real world, so what exactly is your problem?

St. Elsewhere was a medical drama that focused mostly on physicians. As has already been extensively covered in 1980's medicine largely still was a male dominated field. St. Elsewhere wasn't much different than Trapper John, M.D. and other series of period where bulk of female cast were either nurses, wives of doctors, patients or something.

OTOH where the drama was about nurses (such as series Nurse) starring cast credits were dominated by females, because in 1980's that sex largely made up nursing staff in hospitals.

Season Six opening credits......

Excellent show including Mark Harmon.

I was so disappointed when they added Mark Harmon and Cynthia Sykes to the cast in the second season because they clearly felt they needed a couple of traditionally "beautiful" leads in the show.

Cynthia Sykes was in season 1

[quote] Who gives a damn if she didn’t feel comfortable doing a lesbian storyline?

Cynthia Sikes did play the lesbian storyline - but it was toned down. She invites a visiting female doctor to crash at her place, but then gets uncomfortable when the doctor tells her that she is a lesbian.

Bonnie Bartlett (Ellen Craig) recently said in an interview that Bruce Paltrow (executive producer) didn't like women, and that the show was male-dominated

Which was ironic, Bartlett said considering what a feminist Blythe Danner is.

[quote]She invites a visiting female doctor to crash at her place, but then gets uncomfortable when the doctor tells her that she is a lesbian.

These things happen.

Bonnie Bartlett is kind of a nasty bitch. She and William Daniels sort of swapped personalities in playing Mark and Ellen. Daniels is warm and supportive; Bartlett is mean.

I worked with David Morse about 20 years ago. Very sweet man but incredibly shy. Almost inarticulate.

I hope I'm not misremembering this but I belive it was nurse Shirley who presented her rapist's wife with a knitted ski mask as a baby shower gift which matched the ski mask the husband, Dr Peter White used. It was a tiny black ski mask with white stitching. It cracked me up.

R153- I guess when she played DL Fav Barbara Thorndyke she was playing herself. Just like the REAL Betty White is NOT Rose Nyland. Betty White was playing herself on MTM except she's into PUSSY not COCK.

Another thing St. Elsewhere got correct was foreshadowing what was to come on steroids in future; large healthcare networks and or investors/private equity swooping in and purchasing hospitals with stated aim of making them more efficient, etc...

Things usually didn't work out that way. Places were looted of assets (like real estate), piled deep with debt, dozens of highly paid consultants came and went all with grand visions of a "new" hospital or medical center that never happened. Once everything of value was gone, and those hospitals were still charity or places of last resort (read couldn't make money), in the end they closed.

Humana brought legal action against NBC to force them to run a disclaimer that Ecumena (the company that bought St. Eligius Hospital) was not related in any way to their company. Humana claimed their actions had nothing to do with St. Elsewhere per se, they just were out to protect their brand name.

Why'd David Birney leave after one year? Wasn't he the first billed star in season 1?

R158

Don't think a reason or explication was ever given. After one season David Birney was just gone....

Birney.

Re: the bit about David Birney: "Birney was a popular TV star in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, and may have thought that his lothario character was going to be the de facto leading man; as it turned out, he was outshined by nearly all of the supporting cast and was gradually phased out, to the extent that he barely appears in the last few episodes of the season." According to the biography of David Birney on Yahoo! Movies, he left the show due to "[c]onflicts with the producers [about] the direction and status of his role."

He had 3 rug rats and 1 rug muncher at home he had to keep an eye on.

Birney never remarried after Merideth. Lavender marriage? He does ping a little.

Probably one reason people slagging on lack of females in St. Elsewhere's opening credits was the show's tight focus on doctors.

Other hospital medical dramas on television at or around same time such as Trapper John, M.D. had a decent number of nurses as part of ensemble cast. There were only three nurses part of St. Elsewhere main cast. Rest of females were doctors, and we've covered that.....

Doris Roberts and James Coco won Emmys for their joint appearance on this show.

Denzel never talks about this show or shows up to any of the reunions. Almost like he's ashamed of it.

I forgot that Betty White did a guest arc at the same time that she started doing Golden Girls.

Mark Harmon was a huge sex symbol back in the day.

He was People's Sexiest Man Alive!

Didn't Blythe Danner, wife of EP Bruce Paltrow, do a funny cameo in one of the episodes? I seem to remember her as a wacky patient with some other quirky actresses....maybe Tammy Grimes or Olympia Dukakis?

The episode where the patient John Doe thinks he’s Mary Richards and runs into the character played by Betty White (“Sue Ann?”) was delightfully wacky.

Brenda Vacarro and Eva La Gallienne, R166.

No one was wackier than Eva le Gallienne!

Birney was a jerk and could not come to terms with the producers for a higher salary, so he didn't return. He was arguabley, the most familiar regular cast member but clearly not the most essential.

R164: they really didn't know what to do with Denzel and he never had many storylines. I think that's why he's a noshow and doesn't discuss the series.

[quote] The episode where the patient John Doe thinks he’s Mary Richards and runs into the character played by Betty White (“Sue Ann?”) was delightfully wacky.

I understand that both shows had the same production company, but I so wished that Mad Men had made a similar nod to the McMann & Tate ad agency from Bewitched.

^The both shows being St. Elsewhere & MTM, not MM & Bewitched.

The Halloween episode with Helen Lawson as the Wicked Witch of the West was legendary. The fact that the Witch was brought in for drinking spiked punch was fortunate. La Lawson didn't even have to act drunk.

David Birney has a long-standing rep for being a jerk. And he's straight if anyone even cares any more.

He beat Meredith!

[quote]Denzel never talks about this show or shows up to any of the reunions. Almost like he's ashamed of it.

I’ve noticed that too. I think he’s an asshole who thinks he’s too good to talk about his TV beginnings. He was on the entire time, so it’s not like it was just a blip in his career.

R177- St Elsewhere was a good show. In the late 1980's and early 1990's he appeared in good movies like Cry Freedom (1987) and Mississippi Masala (1991) then he changed course and switched to MASS MARKET CRAP movies and how he's considered a MAJOR success. His so called success seems rather hollow.

What is there for Denzel to talk about at St. Elsewhere reunions? He was barely ever used in his time on the series. Maybe he's rightfully sour or at least unmoved about his time there. Do any of you even remember a storyline that featured him?

I thought he had a storyline/romance with Alfre Woodard?

He did, but it didn't last long. He never had a major, show dominating storyline.

R91 Lorna? Diana Canova played a Chaplain and didn't have to get coked up to do it unlike you. She had chemistry with Gregory Harrison!

Denzel is the most egocentric actor I've ever met/worked with. Won't talk to his co-stars off set, treats the crew like shit. Can't even remember the names of actors he's worked with. Total prick.

In the season 5 cliff-hanger the hospital shut down and all the residents were transferred to hospitals all across America

The first episode in season 6, all the residents were hauled back to St. Eligius. Denzel's first line of dialogue was

"Who do I have to boink to get out of this place?"

St. Elsewhere was always doing inside jokes like that.

Have started rewatching. In episode three Shirley has a great speech about how most Doctors are rich, white old men who do not care about nurses in anyway.

[quote]Denzel is the most egocentric actor I've ever met/worked with. Won't talk to his co-stars off set, treats the crew like shit. Can't even remember the names of actors he's worked with. Total prick.

I remember that guy that played Balki in Perfect Strangers did a movie with him and said Denzel was a bullying piece of shit the whole time.

When George C. Wolfe's abysmal production of "The Iceman Cometh" was in previews, Denzel wouldn't allow visitors for anyone in the cast visit them in their dressing rooms. Some bullshit about his concentration after a performance.

R187 He should have just learnt his fucking lines.

I’ve always been so sick of how the media always kisses Denzel’s ass.

[quote] Denzel is the most egocentric actor I've ever met/worked with. Won't talk to his co-stars off set, treats the crew like shit. Can't even remember the names of actors he's worked with. Total prick.

[quote] In the season 5 cliff-hanger the hospital shut down and all the residents were transferred to hospitals all across America. The first episode in season 6, all the residents were hauled back to St. Eligius. Denzel's first line of dialogue was "Who do I have to boink to get out of this place?"

and I just watched Denzel last episode on St. Elsewhere - he appeared in the second last show, before it went off the air. His final two lines of dialogue when he left the hospital, first to his co-workers

"I hated every minute in this place. But you guys, you never let me get away with anything"

and as his character was in the elevator, just before the doors closed, he threw his name-tag at the nurses station and simply said "I'm free"

as I said St, Elsewhere was doing inside jokes like that, as what the writers wrote, really revealed how he probably felt about being on the show.

Watching the first season Denzel has a big storyline with Tom Hulce as the guy who lost his memory. The character is very noble.

I watched the whole series...the ending was so bleak and depressing. I still loved the show. ...I remember them calling Connie Lingus over the PA system...it was subtle, in the background. The show was cool like that

I saw Denzel on Broadway in the revival of "A Raisin in the Sun". Bus groups of middle aged women arrived right around the curtain and they just loved, loved him and he often played to them rather than to his castmates, who were frankly much better than him, in terms of performances.

Shirley is such a fucking good character. She is constantly calling out the men for their shit. Not just Ehrlich, but Peter White, Fiscus for fucking over Shirley Daniels. She is neat. Long Live Shirley Daniels.

David Morse has always given me the creeps for some reason. Am I the only one who doesn't find him hot?

R195 Not hot, Certainly not in this. But sometimes....when he does his country sweet boy act, is smoking.

A must watch...

I've been watching on Hulu before it leaves at the end of the month. I have one question-

Why was Nurse Lucy such an unmitigated cunt? There wasn't even any nuance to her. She was just a nasty fucking bitch who should have been fired for the way she talked to everyone, from the patients to her superiors.