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Best episode of ER ever?
by Hemal Jhaveri, posted Apr 2nd 2009 4:35PM
As we bid farewell to ER tonight, I can't let it pass without commenting on my all-time favorite episode of the series, the incomparable "Love's Labor Lost". Anyone who's a fan of the show should remember the heartbreaking story of a young couple, Sean and Jodi O'Brien, who were about to give birth to their first child and the ultimate devastating ending. It was a gut wrenching, too-painful-to-watch hour of television that I've never forgotten. While there are many other brilliant episodes in the show's history, this stands out as one of the first examples of how powerful ER could be.
What starts off as a routine day for Dr. Green turns into unbearable tragedy in the span of a few hours when he critically misdiagnoses the pregnant woman's problem. A long series of missteps and complications result in her death and Dr, Green's first real failure as a physician. It was all about the human cost of medicine, the unpredictability and fragility of life and death.
The show's fast pace gave it a sense of urgency fitting life and death situations, and also left the viewer winded and reeling after the final credits rolled. For it's time, ER was one of the mos graphic shows on TV as well, never shying away from showing the blood and guts reality of medicine. In "Love's Labor Lost", we're shown not only an emotionally distraught patient, but the brutal physicality of medicine. We see Dr. Green rooting around in this poor woman's uterus, his hands covered in blood, while her husband (played by a then unknown Bradley Whitford) helplessly watched. It's was graphic, but not needlessly.
I was in high school when that season one episode first aired and years later, I don't think I've seen anything that lives up to that one hour of television. It was a brilliant hour fraught with medical drama and emotional tension that ended in utter, crushing heartbreak.
It's too bad that ER has become so melodramatic now, since it's first few seasons were nothing short of televisual brilliance. Their ground breaking stories and visual style had at often times a gut wrenching emotional impact that changed the television landscape forever. The series may be ending on a mediocre note, but it was once flawless and gripping storytelling that won't be forgotten.
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