'ER' Is the Show I Can't Quit

How a ‘90s medical drama became the throughline of my TV fandom — and my career as a journalist.

Courtesy of NBC

Even before I was paid to watch and write about television, there was one question I loathed more than any other:

“What’s your favorite show?”

It always felt like a trick. When you watch as much TV as I do, you never have just one favorite — at least not one that springs to mind when you’re put on the spot. Your answer might change by day, bend to recency bias, or shift depending on who’s asking. With close friends, I might’ve gone with a safe pick — a show we both knew by heart. With relatives, I probably would’ve avoided anything too risqué. And with industry peers, I’d reach for something “cool” — something “of the moment.”

But the truth is, I didn’t grow up on “cool” shows — which you probably already know if you’ve been reading this Substack. TGIF sitcoms were my jam. And until I was 12 or 13, my favorite one-hour drama was 7th Heaven — which, in hindsight, played as much like a comedy as anything else I was watching.

My hard pivot into “adult” dramas came when NBC launched Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip — the show everyone thought would be an Emmy darling while Tina Fey’s 30 Rock faded into obscurity. (Oh, how the prognosticators got that one wrong!) At 13, I wasn’t looking for its flaws. I was a huge Matthew Perry fan who loved the idea of a show about the inner workings of a late-night comedy institution. Above all, it made me feel sophisticated just watching it. But then it got cancelled, and the following season didn’t serve me anything that felt as “important.”

A year later, I walked into the living room and noticed a familiar face on the family TV. It was John Stamos, but he wasn’t playing Uncle Jesse. He was wearing scrubs, talking seriously with Linda Cardellini — who, at that point, I knew strictly as Lauren, the ski bunny who nearly broke up Cory and Topanga on Boy Meets World. I asked my father what he was watching. “ER,” he answered.

Dad was an avid ER viewer early on but, like many, drifted in the post-Clooney era — only to return for its 15th and final season, lured by the promise of cameos. I started watching with him, not yet aware of the characters or the stranglehold this show once had on the country — but that changed fast. I was a sophomore in high school with a late start — roughly 11:30 a.m. — which meant every morning I could sit down to breakfast and devour early ER episodes on TNT before heading off to class. (Basically, I was binge-watching before binge-watching was a thing.)

Soon enough, I had the first six seasons on DVD, and I’d caught the last three seasons on cable. I loved everything about it — the cast, the chaos, the depth of character that House, the other medical drama in my life, never quite delivered — but eventually I fell off. I knew I’d come back someday, but newer shows — mostly sitcoms like Community, Cougar Town, The Middle and New Girl — kept cutting the line. And for far too long, ER wasn’t streaming anywhere, which made it easy to let it fall to the bottom of my queue.

So ER drifted away — until, years later, Hulu acquired the exclusive streaming rights and returned one of NBC’s crown jewels to the cultural conversation. Its late 2010s resurgence coincided with my first year living on my own. I was a newly hired staff editor at TVLine, with little going on in terms of a social life. I’d clock out at 3 pm, scurry home, change into sweats, and order takeout. Then came ER — as few as four episodes, as many as seven or eight if I lost track of time.

I wasn’t just watching ER. I was practically living at County General. For the first time, I could watch it properly, in order, from beginning to end. That made the series feel new again, like I was discovering it with those who first tuned in during the mid-‘90s. And because I was roughly the same age Noah Wyle was in Season 1, I gravitated toward Carter in a way I never had before.

Over the next year and change, I made my way through all 331 episodes — twice. The only thing that pulled me away was meeting my now-wife, a fourth-year nursing student deep into [shudders] Grey’s Anatomy.

Then everything stopped. COVID hit. We were living together by then, spending most nights in front of the TV. I know not everyone wanted to watch a medical drama during a global pandemic, but ER was my comfort show. So, I started it over again. At first, she thought it looked “old.” But by the Luka/Abby era, she wasn’t just half-listening from behind her book anymore — she was hooked.

Suddenly, it was our show.

Of course, a part of me still felt “ownership” over it. And when I joined Threads in search of a Twitter alternative in 2023, my fandom became part of my online identity — personal but still professional enough for a TV journalist. I embraced ER as my favorite show — and in turn, so many of you embraced me. After all these years, I finally had an answer that felt true: cool but nostalgic, fitting with friends or family, and professional enough to lend credibility when it came time to cover HBO Max’s The Pitt.

I used to dread the question, “What’s your favorite show?” Now, I welcome it.

Your turn: What’s the show you’d claim as your all-time favorite — the one you just can’t quit, no matter how many times you’ve seen it?