Jonathan Storm: Scrub up and get into the 'ER'

The beloved Dr. Mark Greene returns to County General tonight, as

ER

winds toward the end.

Of course he's dead, but when has a little problem like that stood in the way? Never has a show whose title should confine it to one room ventured so far afield. It will end with either a bang or a whimper - history suggests a Big Bang - in late winter or spring after more than 325 episodes and 15 seasons, the fourth-longest run for a network drama series in TV history. Law & Order is four years ahead; the other two are Lassie (1954-71) and Gunsmoke (1955-75).

Exactly when did ER jump the shark? Voters at the Web site Jump the Shark pick the 2002 episode when Greene died. Yet ER, an instant hit when it premiered in 1994, didn't drop out of the top 10 until 2004-05.

That helped make it the second most popular drama series of all time (behind Gunsmoke), according to a list based solely on ratings and longevity compiled by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh in The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows. ER has been nominated for more Emmys, 122, than any other TV show.

Passionate viewers abide. Nearly 1,000 Jump the Shark voters say ER never jumped. In one fan's video history of the show's 50 best moments (www.youtube.com/user/hockeystar02004), Greene's death scene is No. 1. Still, ER could barely tie with the ABC dud Women's Murder Club last season, at 58th in the Nielsens.

Reinvigorated this fall with the addition of Angela Bassett as Dr. Catherine Banfield, it now draws about 9 million viewers a week, quite a comedown from the 32 million it snagged in its second, and highest-rated, season.

The cast may be unrecognizable to old-time fans. George Clooney, Eriq La Salle, Julianna Margulies, Laura Innes and William H. Macy have been gone for years. This season, Banfield replaces Dr. Gregory Pratt (Mekhi Phifer), whose six-year run ended in the Sept. 25 premiere when an ambulance blew up with him in it.

Although there's always plenty of bloody action, ER is a soap opera, often as silly as they come. In the grandest exit, for instance, Philadelphia's own Paul McCrane, playing bigoted Dr. Rocket Romano, was crushed and killed instantly when a helicopter crashed on top of him. The year before, he had lost an arm when he backed into a medevac helicopter tail rotor.

But tonight's episode is one of the best TV drama hours so far this season. Veteran Bassett has an Emmy-worthy turn trying to save a little girl, as she flashes back to her first encounter with the County General ER eight years ago. Two episodes later, after 10 years climbing the ladder to be attending physician, former nurse Abby Lockhart (Maura Tierney) quit after one day.

That's where Anthony Edwards' Dr. Greene comes in. It's great to see him again, along with a few other old favorites in cameos. Later in the season, Noah Wyle's Dr. John Carter will have a four-episode arc, and rumor is that Clooney, just another TV actor when the show began, will drop by.

The show's creator, Michael Crichton, died last week of cancer. A physician, he based ER on his time as a '60s medical student in Boston, and, as he did in many other works (Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain), he made a point of including lots of science. ER has made intubate a mainstream American word; people race around the chaotic emergency room, as they do tonight, using words and phrases like odynophagia, acidotic, and pleural lavage.

If tonight's episode is any indication, ER is probably worth rejoining for the ride to the end, when audience symptoms should include acute involuntary respiration and lachrymal fluid excretion accompanying feelings of warm satisfaction.

ER

10 tonight on NBC10