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Who knew that “ER” would still be running 15 seasons
after the show debuted? The series although it wasn’t a
ratings blockbuster throughout its life garnered respectable
ratings and even when its winding soap opera styled subplots
that provided the backbone for the crisis of the moment.
The cast gamely tackled these stories even though they have
probably tackled similar storylines during the show’s long
run. That’s not to suggest that the series had run out of
steam or that it had begun to repeat itself but there are
only so many variations you can do on a series like this
of the same type of stories. ***
Regardless season 11 had its highlights even if they
may have lacked some of the power of the series when Clooney,
Edwards and the other main cast members were still part
of the show. The 11th season had a number of clever and
well written episodes from the opener “One for the Road”
where Pratt, Jing-Mei and Elgin try to escape a sinking
car after being shot at and where Weaver found herself pulled
into a major custody battle to “Try Carter” where Dr. Carter
finds July 4th to be a very busy and trying time because
he’s the only attending physician in the ER. One of the
best and most imaginative episodes “Time of Death” features
Ray Liotta as Charlie a patient knocking on heaven’s door.
We see all the little things that go into trying to keep
a patient on the verge of dying. We also get to see memories
from Charlie’s past intertwined with delusions he has while
being treated. All together the 11th season demonstrated
that the show wasn’t running on fumes by the 11th season
but tackling more imaginative stories since they didn’t
have the advantage of the “classic” ensemble. ---
Image & Sound:
As with previous seasons, Warner does a nice job with
the transfers. Colors are accurate with nice flesh tones
and there wasn’t any noticeable damage to the prints used
for this season. Detail is very good although a few digital
artifacts such as edge enhancement crop up from time to
time it isn’t consistently throughout the series or at least
I didn’t notice it throughout the show. ***
Audio sounds extremely good with dialogue front and
center as it should be but the surround speakers do come
alive with activity whenever there’s a crisis in the ER.
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