Warner Bros. | 2006-07 | 1012 mins. | Not Rated
With 267 episodes in the can, and entering its thirteenth season, ER was entering its stretch run. With the last appearance of original cast member Noah Wylie as Dr. John Carter the season before, the show now had a completely new look, albeit the same (if a bit tired), feel. When ER introduced Dr. Luka Kovac (Goran Visnjic) into the cast in the sixth season, he was just another potentially interesting character. Hailing from Croatia, the high strung, intense doctor became the series breakout male lead by season eleven.
Kovac’s leading man status was given a boost by a small arc with Noah Wyle wherein he officially hands off the baton, and the show transitions fully to being about Kovac’s love life and also those of the other doctors. Since ER featured an ensemble cast, establishing leading man credentials took some time. In my mind, that finally occurred once Luka traded in his womanizing past for a committed relationship with Dr. Abby Lockhart (Maura Tierney).
As the twelfth season drew to a close, Nurse Samantha Taggart’s (Linda Cardellini) convict ex-husband lied his way into the hospital and managed to take her and her son hostage and speed away… all of this not before shooting up the ER seriously wounding desk attendant Gerry (Abraham Berubi), paralyzing Dr. Kovac with an injection called VEC and causing a pregnant Abby to be thrown against the wall. Now as the thirteenth season begins, the staff is forced to cope with the aftermath of the carnage.
Compared to the previous three seasons or so, ER saw little decline in storylines due to a strong writing team, a talented cast and an ability to attracted a solid roster of guest stars. Academy Award winner Forrest Whittaker comes aboard for a particularly dramatic and touching multi-episode storyline. He stars as Curtis Ames, a carpenter who suffered a stroke while under Luka’s care for pneumonia, sues him for malpractice. The episodes featuring Ames was really the first time ER took the focus off the doctors, and looked at things from the patient’s perspective. For better or worse, it also showed how doctors like Kovac can get so with the medical/political side of their profession, they sometimes forget that each patient has their own life and responsibilities as well.
Other guest stars of note include: John Mahoney (Fraiser) as the homosexual life partner of a of a dying man, Freddy Rodriquez (Six Feet Under), as a comedian dying of leukemia who just wants to perform on stage one more time, Annabella Sciorra as a cancer stricken photographer, Shawn Hatosy (Dexter) in a standout portrayal as a man suffering from multiple personality disorder, and Sally Field returns again for a couple of episodes as Abby Lockhart’s mother.
John Stamos had guest starred as paramedic Tony Gates on two episodes in season twelve. By the thirteenth, he was an intern and a series regular. Brass and cocky, it was clear that the Gates character was clear meant as a replacement for Kovac. Because of this, season thirteen has no real central character, and whatever credibility the Kovac character had gained is tapped out by the need to build a backstory for Gates.
So, while the writing is solid, the constant cast changes had really taken their toll. Characters seem to come and go at an alarming rate—a male nurse played by Kip Pardue is around for six episodes and a medical student Mae Lee Park (Julia Ling), even fewer—it felt as though producers were playing musical characters, looking for just the right mix of people, with everyone from the original cast gone. Unfortunately, that set the show up for some frustrating gaps in continuity.
When Dr. Romano (Paul McCrane) was killed off in tenth season, Dr.Weaver (Laura Innes) was left as the sole representation of ER’s once notable strong supporting characters. With her departure, the show began its undeniable decline.
This seasons twenty three episodes are presented in their original 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen format and look good. The show was being broadcast in high definition, so they certainly knew what they were doing, and the resulting image looks pristine without any edge enhancement or haloing. Overall, it’s a quality presentation from Warner Bros.
While I wasn’t surprised to get a two-channel Dolby stereo track, I was surprised at the activity by all speakers during the season. With the occasional camera work, when a patient gets brought in from the ambulance, there’s an understated amount of activity in the rear speakers that doesn’t just mirror the show’s sound. In a helicopter sequence, the subwoofer works overtime.
Like past season releases, all you’ll find here are deleted scenes, referred to as “Outpatient Outtakes.”
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