"It's not as if Alaska was part of my game plan, but the fact is, I've always thought that medicine was for me, ever since I played doctor with Katie Kaplan in second grade. I had the desire, the grades.I just didn't have the bucks." - Rob Morrow as Joel Fleischman
Northern Exposure: The Complete First Season DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
Joel Fleischman is a New Yorker. He likes his bagels schmeared and his delis kosher. When Alaska offered to pay his $125,000 Columbia medical school tuition in exchange for a four year commitment to practice medicine in Anchorage, like any tough-nosed New Yorker, Joel (Rob Morrow) did his homework - he visited the city to make sure it was habitable, looked at the local golf course, and found the best place to buy corned beef. Afterwards, he accepted the scholarship without hesitation, but there was one tiny factor on which he couldn't have planned. You see, upon his graduation, Anchorage finds itself with too many doctors, and Joel's contract stipulates that if he isn't needed there, he can be transferred to any other burg in the state. That's how Joel comes to find himself in Cicely, a rural village with no golf course, no deli, and a general store whose proprietor has never even heard of bagels.
Cicely has only 839 citizens, and as Joel quickly discovers, each of them is more eccentric than the next. Former astronaut Maurice Minnifield (Barry Corbin) set his sights on the new frontier of Alaska several years back, buying up a large parcel of land and starting up a communications empire (consisting mostly of KBHR 57AM, a radio station). As the leader of the town's Chamber of Commerce, hotheaded Maurice is also responsible for bringing Joel to Cicely in a vain attempt to fashion the city into an "Alaskan Riviera." Lackadaisical Ed Chigliak (Darren E. Burrows) is Maurice's gopher who dreams of becoming a filmmaker, the Woody Allen of Alaska. In addition to hosting KBHR's popular morning show, hunky DJ-cum-philosopher Chris Stevens (John Corbett) is the town's resident chick magnet. Shy, quiet Marilyn Whirlwind (Elaine Miles) assumes the role of Joel's secretary, even though he insists he doesn't need one. Sixty-two year old barkeep Holling Vincouer (Broadway vet John Cullum) gave up hunting in favor of a more gentle life running his pub. He also nearly gave up his decades-long friendship with Maurice. It seems that a year and a half ago, Maurice judged the Miss Northwest Passage beauty contest, and he became so smitten with the winner, eighteen year old Shelly Tambo (Cynthia Geary), that he brought her back to Cicely. Shelly, however, soon fell in love with Holling, and their feud began.
As much as Joel hates his newfound town, he hates his rental cabin even more. The plumbing doesn't work, the mice are especially bold, and Joel cannot sleep without hearing the hum of an air-conditioner. Joel's landlady is Maggie O'Connell (Janine Turner), a headstrong pilot who can more than hold her own against the tough New Yorker. The two are somewhat attracted to each other, but both are in steady relationships. Of course, that could change at any minute since Maggie has bad luck with boyfriends. Specifically, they have a tendency to die. Of her three previous boyfriends, one froze on a glacier, one fell off of a mountain and the other died in a balloon accident. Her current boyfriend, Rick (Eight is Enough's Grant Goodeve), is hoping to buck the trend. In the meantime, Joel implores his girlfriend Elaine (Jessica Lundy), a third year law student at NYU, to find a way out of his contract, but until then, he's stuck seeing patients in Cicely, including a beaver that won't chew wood.
Northern Exposure began its abbreviated eight-episode first season on CBS in the summer of 1990. The pilot episode starts the series off on especially strong footing. That first episode is pitch-perfect, effortlessly and succinctly introducing the show's characters and its Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court conceit. Unlike many pilots, the characters are well-defined from the start (although all of Chris' lines were cut and Shelly doesn't actually speak until the third episode).
Strictly speaking, not a lot happens in these episodes. Elaine's visit coincides with a flu breakout ("The Russian Flu"), Joel comes face to face with Cicely's supposed boogey man, Adam (Adam Arkin in "Aurora Borealis"), Holling faces the bear that tried to maul him years before ("A Kodiak Moment"). Still, the shaggy dog nature of Northern Exposure's plots is part of the show's charm. It is simply fun to spend time with these characters.
After all of these years, Northern Exposure still maintains a fresh, foreign aura. The series has a timeless quality, except for an abundance of excessively pleated pants. The series is very successful at creating a unique sense of place and character. Even the peripheral characters, like Joel's quiet but persistent receptionist Marilyn (Elaine Miles) and general store owner Ruth-Anne (Peg Phillips) are finely drawn. Unlike the recent NBC series Ed, which often seemed to (unsuccessfully) strive for Northern Exposure's unselfconscious whimsy, the characters manage to be quirky without being overly weird or precious. Just as strong is the show's depiction of the personality of the town itself. Cicely at once feels exotic and familiar. The Alaskan setting is unusual for television and, by extension, for us. At the same time, we come to know the characters so well that it helps us to paint a mental portrait of the townspeople are like as a whole.
Although Northern Exposure is set in Alaska, in actuality it was filmed in Washington state. The show's exteriors were located only a few towns over from those used in Twin Peaks, another series known for its strong sense of place and character. The creators of Northern Exposure even throw in a homage to their TV neighbor in the season one episode "The Russian Flu."
One aspect of Northern Exposure: The Complete First Season that is sure to give consumers pause is its price. This two disc set retails for $59.98. Savvy shoppers can find it for as much as 30% less at discounters, but the price still seems a little steep for a boxed set that contains only eight episodes. Yes, the set does contain extras (detailed below) and comes in collectible packaging, but this pricing does not seem consistent with other TV DVD boxed set releases. Just as disappointing is the knowledge that the second season consists of only seven episodes, leading one to ponder why the two seasons were not combined into a single boxed set.
Also frustrating is the fact that while Universal is charging fans a premium price for their product, at the same time they insult those same fans by including forced commercials at the start of the first disc. These commercials (which tout other Universal TV DVD releases) are not skippable. Viewers must either watch the commercials or fast forward through them. Certain DVD player models will allow viewers to skip the commercials by pressing "stop" when the DVD loads and then pressing "menu." Including these forced commercials just seems mean-spirited and anti-consumer. The commercials would be bad enough on the DVD release of a movie, but they are especially bothersome for TV DVD purchasers since they are likely to reload the DVDs several times in order to watch individual episodes.
On a more basic level, the small number of episodes included here means that fans' appetites for Northern Exposure will merely be whetted by The Complete First Season. While waiting for season two, adventurous types may want to give BBC's Monarch of the Glen a try. This delightful series transfers Northern Exposure's fish out of water theme to the Scottish highlands, adding a bit of soap opera along the way.
The eight episodes that make up the first season of Northern Exposure are evenly divided onto two double sided discs. The discs are housed in a keepcase with an interior swinging arm to hold the second disc. Incidentally, both discs are mislabeled, with sides "1" and "2" inversed. The keepcase is, in turn, enclosed by a bright orange "parka" covering, complete with moose-shaped zipper fob. The packaging (which more closely resembles a sleeping bag) is clever, but one wonders how long the zipper will remain operable before it finally snags or jumps its teeth.
The simple, intuitive menus employ static images of publicity shots. Viewers can choose to play all episodes or can pick an individual episode. The episodes are divided into chapters, but there are no scene selection menus.
