'ER' spent an awfully long time saying goodbye -- a whole season, in fact -- before it finally wound down on April 2. The last episode was not epic in scope, nor did it neatly tie up the loose ends of the lives of the multitude of County General staffers. It was just another gritty workday in the life of the hospital, but one in which some special things happened that, for fans, paid respectful homage to the show's 15-year legacy as one of NBC's finest (and perhaps final) hour-long dramas.'ER' spent an awfully long time saying goodbye -- a whole season, in fact -- before it finally wound down on April 2. The last episode was not epic in scope, nor did it neatly tie up the loose ends of the lives of the multitude of County General staffers. It was just another gritty workday in the life of the hospital, but one in which some special things happened that, for fans, paid respectful homage to the show's 15-year legacy as one of NBC's finest (and perhaps final) hour-long dramas.

The two-hour finale, titled, 'And In the End...' (an apparent reference to the last song the Beatles ever recorded) capped a season that had been all about life coming full circle. All season long, 'ER''s celebrated alumni had been returning in guest spots, taking one final victory lap before the show went off the air. Several of them -- Peter Benton, Susan Lewis, Kerry Weaver, and Elizabeth Corday -- were on hand for the finale as John Carter (Noah Wyle) finally did what he'd been promising to do for years: He used his family trust fund to open a clinic for the underprivileged.

Other moments paid tribute to familiar moments in the series dating all the way back to the 1994 debut. We see nurse Lydia waking Archie from an exam-room nap, just as she did Dr. Greene in the opening scene of the pilot episode. A pregnant mom's death in childbirth recalls a similarly tragic death from season 1 high point 'Love's Labor Lost.' A newbie played by grown-up Gilmore Girl Alexis Bledel, as wide-eyed and green as Carter was 15 years ago, has to deliver a cancer diagnosis, just as Susan did in the pilot. Carter shows off his basketball skills, suggesting that he's been working on his jump shot, as Mark Greene told him to do in their last conversation before Mark's death. And the storyline with guest Ernest Borgnine, as a man who must cope with the death of his wife of 72 years, echoed another very early plot point in which Drs. Greene and Ross had to help an old man do the same thing.

Most notably, the ER staff is reintroduced to Rachel Greene, a little girl when the series started, and now a poised medical student thinking of signing up for emergency room duty. In the series' final moments, the decision is thrust upon her (along with a set of scrubs), as a fire at a Chicago power station sends casualty-laden ambulances streaming into the ER entrance. The late Dr. Greene couldn't be there for the finale, but his daughter is there to carry on his name. So is Dr. Carter, grown from cub-like intern into grizzled vet. He suits up as well. Life and death go on.

The Final Minutes of the 'ER' Series Finale - 'And in the End...'


Some viewers saw this as an unceremonious ending to a show that had long been one of TV's most acclaimed dramas and a mainstay of NBC's fabled Thursday night lineup. After this, 10 PM drama was all but dead at NBC, killed off for good in the fall, when NBC began airing the cheap-to-produce 'Jay Leno Show' five nights a week instead of costly scripted series.

Still, if 'And in the End...' wasn't the most elegant or momentous series finale, it was true to the series' gritty spirit and tireless work ethic. That sense of hard-nosed realism - a hallmark of a series that was ultimately about the limitations of science and medicine - made the finale an ultimately satisfying and fitting end to 15 seasons of landmark drama.