A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

SEE, THERE'S TWO KINDS OF DOCTORS. THE KIND THAT GETS RID OF THEIR FEELINGS -- AND THE KIND THAT KEEPS THEM. IF YOU'RE GOING TO KEEP YOUR FEELINGS, YOU'RE GOING TO GET SICK FROM TIME TO TIME. THAT'S JUST HOW IT WORKS: I've said what I can about the end of ER; I'm turning it over to professionals today -- Alan has a best and worst list (with much YouTubage); Alessandra Stanley on how the last season went meta; 15 reasons to remember the show from the readers of the Contra Costa Times; the Hollywood Reporter with a timeline and recap; the Associated Press on how NBC has changed over the past 15 years; from Variety, producer Joe Sachs responds to critics, ER's prop master on filming LLL and its 9-19-94 review of the pilot; and, finally, author Neal Gabler bids farewell to "the darkest, bleakest program on broadcast television and the one with the most sophisticated take on life":

Indeed, as its stars kept departing the show and replacements took their slots, it became more and more apparent that the real star of "ER" was the ER itself and that the room had been transfigured from a literal emergency room into a metaphor of crisis where every triumph is temporary because it is inevitably followed by another disaster -- actually dozens of disasters. It also became apparent that those who stayed in the ER and kept facing the carnage there were condemned. ...

The character who may have most embodied the damage inflicted by the ER is Dr. John Carter (Noah Wyle), who early on was the audience's primary point of identification and whose tenure on the program neatly traces the thematic trajectory of "ER" from its early nobility to its later futility. When the show began, Carter was a wealthy, fresh-faced intern, an idealist who cared so much about each and every patient that he could barely cope with tragedy. As seasons passed, Carter not only honed his medical skills, eventually becoming a great technical doctor, but he also learned how necessary it was to inure himself to much of what he sees. He is a great doctor because he feels. But he can function as a doctor only when he ceases to feel so much.... To regain his idealism and recalibrate his feelings, he leaves the hospital to work in sub-Saharan Africa and even falls in love and gets married, but there is a sense that he has been so brutalized by the ER that he will never be what he once was. Unlike so many other denizens of the ER, he cannot move on.

See you tonight when it's over -- no NBC comedies tonight, just a one-hour clip show and the two-hour finale.