Random Thoughts on Friday: Northern Exposure

There are a fist full of TV shows we have gotten on DVD and watched...  sometimes even re-watching.  Well, for some time we have slowly been working our way through every episode of Northern Exposure.

I can't remember if I have ever mentioned it here before or not, but this is one of those shows that is just really special to me.  It was strange, weird, entertaining, and sweet.  If you weren't around in the 90s to appreciate this one, let me recommend that you look it up.

Well, back in the 90s, I remember that reruns came on pretty late.  I am thinking around 9 or 10pm.  I had a fast food job where I would be getting home around that time.  We had a small black and white TV in our kitchen.  I would watch Northern Exposure on that little TV in the kitchen (it was pretty far away from the bedrooms and I wouldn't wake my family up by watching it in the distant kitchen).  I might eat a sandwich I made at work as I watched Joel and Maggie on that little black & white screen.

Oh, and I mentioned that I was able to see John Collum in "Waitress" a year or so ago.  That was a huge thrill for me.

Northern Exposure isn't on Netflix or Amazon, so we bought the DVDs.  We have kind of slowly worked our way through watching them.  I don't think of it as a binge watchable show.  Its nice to watch one in the evening before bed as a treat every now and then.

So, we watched the very last episode last night.  Luckily, I missed a lot of episodes back when I would watched them at my parents home on the small TV, so there was a lot of freshness here.  Still, the last season was the worse one.  It was still good, just not as good as the earlier ones.  Rob Morrow left the show midway through the last season.  A new town doctor and his wife were brought in. 

The new doctor is a bit of a clone of Morrow...  and I did read that he was originally going to take over Morrow's role on the show, but they decided against that.  He is a fine actor, but bringing in the new doctor and his wife to the show at this point had a very "Coy and Vance" feel to it.  I got the feeling that several of the scripts at this point had to be retooled to fit the new additions to the cast.

AND, the last episode really didn't tie everything together.  It felt like just another episode.  I felt like (and assume) the episode was made thinking that there would be a season seven of Northern Exposure.  BUT, there was a very sweet and sad last five minutes or so of the last episode, played out to Iris Dement's "Our Town" (and, as a side note, I love Iris Dement and this song).  It was an absolute tear jerker, and one of the saddest (yet, most appropriate) ways to end this series.

I think a couple of years ago there was talk of a reboot.  I can think of no other show more deserving of one.