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WGBH Boston
ER - The Complete First Season

ER - The Complete First Season

List Price: $59.98
Your Price: $47.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: pretty good show, lots of extras
Review: Summary:
ER is a fast-paced television show created by Michael Crichton to highlight life in hospital emergency rooms. The first season of the episode introduces all of the characters and carries them through some of the initial plots, including the loss of Dr. Benton's (Eriq La Salle) mother and Nurse Hathaway's aborted marriage (Julianna Margulies).

My Comments:
The episode is pretty interesting to watch, but it grows old fast. I'm sure the writers have tried their best to come up with new conditions and new situations in order for the staff to have to do different things, but because the audience really doesn't know what 99% of the disorders are, it probably doesn't matter. All they see is someone come in on a gurney, get a lot of attention, see a lot of blood, and watch the doctors, residents, and nurses fight about everything.

Which leads to the characters and the deeper running story lines. After watching just a couple of episodes the viewer is inevitably going to have to look for something more than just the action of an emergency room to keep their attention. The show tries to grab that attention by creating unique characters whose lives pretty much revolve around their time in the ER. Of course there is also the periodic integration of outside lives with life inside the ER, but unless you have watched the show from the very beginning, sometimes its hard to know what is really going on with the characters. This DVD does do a little to help with that by giving brief bios on each of the characters (not the actors), but I don't think the very brief bios really get to the heart of who these people are supposed to be.

I do have to admit that the acting isn't terrible, but neither is it universally stellar. Strangely I find myself more impressed by the male actors of the show (Noah Wyle - Dr. John Carter; Anthony Edwards - Dr. Mark Greene; George Clooney - Dr. Doug Ross; Eriq La Salle - Dr. Peter Benton) than with the female actors (Laura Innes - Dr. Kerry Weaver; Julianna Margulies - Nurse Carol Hathaway). For the most part the male actors, though not absolute stand outs, are pretty good and fairly consistent. The female actors, however, just seem to rub me the wrong way and aren't nearly as convincing.

When the show originally came out I wasn't all that interested. I was still in high school and had better things to do. Occasionally I would watch a few minutes of an episode here or there if I could find nothing else to watch during my brief interludes with the electronic babysitter, but generally I would watch pretty much anything but ER. From the episodes that I've seen I'm amazed that people that follow the show haven't shown higher rates of suicide than people watching sitcoms (maybe they have, someone should do a study). The show is really rather depressing. Nothing ever seems to go right, people die all of the time, and even the main characters periodically attempt suicide and are always upset with one another or about something. I don't know how anyone can really stick to this show for this reason alone.

So, what we have is a rather repetitive TV show with okay actors that tries to keep the viewers attention by developing underlying story lines for each of the characters but in order to understand the story lines you have to see every single episode.

Assuming that you have followed the series, you will likely find this box set to be a great collection. It has a lot of extras that are fairly well done, including a number of outtakes, interviews, and a lot of behind the scenes information.

Overall, though I'm sure this series has been really interesting to some, unless you follow it closely I think the drama can quickly pass you by. Initial exposure to ER can be pretty shocking, with all of the blood, gore, and sadness that accompanies the quite regular deaths, but once you've seen one person die from myocardio-something or other you've seen about all there is to see. I'm sure die-hard fans of ER will love this box set. But having never been sucked in by the depressing stories that anchor the show, I can't really say that I loved it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Very Real!
Review: This 4-disc set includes all the episodes from season one, including the pilot. The pilot is a double-length episode that grabs you from the very beginning. Over 25 hours of viewing pleasure in this set. The pilot has a commentary track by series creator, Michael Chrichton.

There are other various commentaries throughout the set. I would recommend this set as a gift or as a gift to yourself. The discs are double-sided and the packaging is pretty amazing. I was not sure about Warner Brothers' packaging for a while but they seem to have a grasp on how to package & release important titles. You won't be disappointed. You'll eagerly await the release of season two.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ER... Best Show on Television
Review: The ER Season 1 DVD Set is amazing. The extra footage and special features are awesome, as are of course the episodes. Highly recommended to anyone. If you're not already a fan, you will be after viewing these DVDs.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What Is Drama?
Review: ER is drama... and the best show on TV. The first season is rewarding and witty. Personally i dislike the newer episodes but the first couple of seasons are magnificent! Buy It and you wont be disappointed

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What More is there to Say?
Review: If you're going to buy the set, you probably already know and love ER, so I don't have to talk about how great the show is.
(It's great.)

The set isn't as packed with extras as some I've seen, but getting 25 1 hour episodes onto 4 disks (double sided) must've been quite a a trick in itself (Sound and picture quality are fine), so I don't fault them this, and the extras that are there are mostly interesting and fun.

The only complaint I have is with the packaging. Being double sided, the disks are poorly protected in the box, and it's VERY easy to scuff the playing surfaces in handling. (Just opening the package I got finger prints on them!) I fear that they will get scratched fairly quickly.)

Still, a good set at a fair price.

Now... how about the rest of the seasons!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Best
Review: I have been waiting for almost ten years for this to come out on video. I bought the dvd the day it came out and was very happy to see a few scenes that I have never seen before. There is only one way to explain this.... "gripping." It's everything ER fans have been waiting for and more, worth every penny. I can't wait for season two.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ER IS THE BEST SHOW EVER
Review: This DVD is amazing! It has so many extra features and they're so interesting. All of the episodes are in widescreen and there are even commentaries. This DVD brings back memories and it feels like you're watching the episodes for the first time. The outtakes are the funnist and there are also new intervies with past cast.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: a+++++++ dvd
Review: This dvd is excellent!! my expectations for this dvd were huge but it surpassed my expectations by far. There is a booklet with a description of every episoded and scene selection. The special features are amazing. The have interviews with all the original cast member except Eriq La Salle, the outakes are hilarious and show the the ER cast is every bit as lovable as we imagined them. I would recommend this dvd to everyone even if you aren't a avid fan of ER but watch the series you will enjoy this.
Thanks Warner Bros. I can't wait for season 2!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ER WAS a great TV Show
Review: I can't wait to buy this DVD. I use to love watching ER every Thursday night, it was the best show on the air. Unfortunately ever since George Clooney left the series, it has jumped the shark. It is a horrible show now, so it's good to look back at the first year to see how great of a show it use to be.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best television series ever aired.
Review: I have been addicted to this series since its first season. As an avid reader, and more recently a nursing student, I've always understood the jargon, which made the show a lot easier to follow than it otherwise would have been, but this past year working as a nurse's aide on a cancer ward drove home just how realistic this show truly is. Posted on a bulletin board at work one day was a list titled "You know you're a nurse when..." that included "...you can't watch ER because it's too much like real life." And that's the simple truth. Every emergency room in every hospital obviously isn't always as hectic and dramatic as this show, but many are, and all are at one time or another. And, taken collectively, true-to-life stories hospital-wide are accurately portrayed, but in the context of an ER so that they can easily be told in the short period of a one hour drama. Being an evening worker on and off over the years, I've missed far too many episodes of this incredible, heartrending, heartwarming show. I welcome this opportunity to buy the entire first season, and I look forward to more seasons being made available. I highly recommend this series for anyone interested in great human and medical drama, and especially for those fans who came to the show in later seasons.


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