"Do you know what people call this place? Not St. Eligius. St. Elsewhere. A dumping ground, a place you wouldn't want to send your mother-in-law." - William Daniels as Dr. Mark Craig
St. Elsewhere: Season One DVD Review
By A.J. Carson
Premiering on NBC October 26, 1982, St. Elsewhere was a medical drama like no other. Past shows like Dr. Kildare and Marcus Welby, M.D. portrayed doctors as nearly infallible lifesavers. The doctors at Boston's rundown St. Eligius, however, were a little different. Cavalier, somewhat careless Dr. Ben Samuels (David Birney, Bridget Loves Bernie) has slept with most of the hospital's female staff...and may have given many of them a venereal disease. Dr. Donald Westphall (Ed Flanders) is a good role model for the younger doctors, but is limited by his role as chief-of-staff at a hospital with such a bad reputation. Dr. Mark Craig (William Daniels, Boy Meets World) is a world-class heart surgeon with the bedside manner of a cranky pit bull. Dr. Daniel Auschlander (Norman Lloyd) is a kindly liver specialist who finds himself on the other side of the exam table when he develops liver cancer.
St. Eligius is a teaching hospital, and its residents are as motley as the senior staff. Dr. Wayne Fiscus (Howie Mandel, Deal or No Deal) is a horndog emergency room doc who starts carrying a gun when he's mugged by a patient he's treating. Fiscus has a crush on Dr. Cathy Martin (Barbara Whinnery), an oddball pathologist who dresses in black and who insists that a slab in the morgue would be the perfect place for their first tryst. Dr. Jack Morrison (David Morse, Hack) is so dedicated to his patients that the rest of his life suffers. Dr. Victor Ehrlich (Ed Begley, Jr., Kingdom Hospital) is a surgical intern who is equal parts Berkeley casualness and cool ambition. Dr. Peter White (Terrence Knox, Tour of Duty) struggles to balance life as an intern with life as a young husband and father with his family, often coming out on the losing side. Dr. Annie Cavanero (Cynthia Sikes) tries to reconcile her life as a doctor with the life she'll have to give up in order to remain a doctor. Dr. Phillip Chandler (Denzel Washington) tries harder than his colleagues, perhaps because he is apparently the only African-American doctor on the staff.
Other members of the St. Eligius team include Dr. Hugh Beale (G.W. Bailey, The Closer), the hospital's psychologist who can't quite keep his patients in line; Helen Rosenthal (Christina Pickles, Friends), a no-nonsense yet caring nurse; Indian anesthetist Dr. V.J. Kochar (Kavi Raz); insecure Dr. Wendy Armstrong (Kim Miyori); and orderly Luther Hawkins (Eric Laneuville).
St. Elsewhere's characters are finely drawn. Jack Morrison is the heart and soul of the first season. He's the kind of doctor anyone would want - caring, empathetic, willing to go the extra mile for his patients. Yet he spent two years at a med school in Mexico because his grades weren't good enough for American schools. Ben Samuels at first seems like a one dimensional playboy, until we discover the pain behind his actions. Peter White's slow descent from dedicated doctor and family man to something much less noble is often painful to watch. Best (or worst, as the case may be) of all is irascible Daniel Craig. He berates fellow doctors for their hairstyles ("Did you see the head of hair on him? It's disgusting."), their choice of footwear (sneakers are a no-no), and even criticizes Dr. Kochar's English skills.
The series' most vivid character is the hospital itself. Under funded, decaying, and crumbling, the hospital has earned the nickname "St. Elsewhere" because most Boston residents would rather check into any other hospital - or die - rather than enter St. Eligius. Needless to say, the hospital tends to attract patients from the lower end of the social scale. Two gangs rumble in the E.R. An obese woman (Conchata Ferrell) discovers that she is actually eight months pregnant. One patient brings her taxidermied dog for companionship while in the hospital. A man enters the emergency room with a golf club impaled through his chest. The patients are sometimes poignant, sometimes quirky, but often memorable.
Like Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere features the continuing storylines more often found in soap operas. Some plot threads tie up by the end of the hour, while others wend their way over several episodes. For example, a mental patient known as Tweety (Laraine Newman, Saturday Night Live) becomes impregnated by a fellow patient, Ralph (Richard Marcus, The Pretender). Ralph was once a brilliant scientist, but is now convinced that he is a bird, scavenging hospital supplies to build a nest for his beloved Tweety. When Tweety realizes that Ralph will never be "normal" and decides to return to her life as Jane, Ralph goes off the deep end, eating garbage and impersonating a doctor. A baby-faced Tim Robbins plays a homegrown terrorist whose bank bombing seriously wounds an innocent bystander. Both spend several tense episodes being treated in St. Eligius. A gunshot victim (Tom Hulce, Amadeus) has to figure out exactly who he is when he develops amnesia.
The series also employs a unique visual style in its storytelling. It often uses long tracking shots that glide through the hospital's halls, picking up snippets of conversations between various characters.
While it is easy to see St. Elsewhere's innovations, the series doesn't quite hold up. A variety of stellar hospital shows currently on the air - everything from Grey's Anatomy to Scrubs - have taken the formula originated by St. Elsewhere and revitalized it. By comparison, the original series is often pokey and slow.
Familiar faces in season one include Jennifer Savidge (JAG), Heather McAdam (Sisters), Cotter Smith (Equal Justice), Rafael Campos (Rhoda), Ernie Sabella (Perfect Strangers), Ally Sheedy (The Breakfast Club), Jeremy Licht (The Hogan Family), Robert Davi (Profiler), Christopher Guest (Best in Show), Lance Guest (Life Goes On), Molly Cheek (It's Garry Shandling's Show), Charles Robinson (Night Court), George Morfogen (Oz), Ray Liotta (Smith), Robert Pastorelli (Murphy Brown), Jane Kaczmarek (Malcolm in the Middle), Keenan Wynn (The Last Precinct), Michael Madsen (Tilt), Rae Dawn Chong, Candace Cameron (Full House), Liz Sheridan (Seinfeld), Diane Delano (The Ellen Show), Judith Light (Who's the Boss), Elizabeth Kerr (Mork & Mindy), and Howard Duff (Flamingo Road).
The twenty-two episodes that make up the first season are divided onto four double-sided discs. The discs are housed in two slim, clear keepcases, both of which hold a pair of discs. The front of each case features publicity stills of individual cast members along with stock medical images. The back of each case includes a listing of episode titles, airdates, and brief synopses. The cases slide into a cardboard outer sleeve which also features publicity photos of the cast.
The static DVD menus are simple and functional. On the main menu, viewers can choose from a list of the episodes found on the disc. From the individual episode menus, viewers can play the episode, view the scene selection menu, and view the language selection menu. The biggest flaw here is that there is no way to jump from one individual episode menu to another, forcing viewers to go back to the main menu in order to watch the next episode. There is no play all feature.
