laura innes

When the news came that ex-ER star Anthony Edwards was going to return to the show for an episode this last season, fans wondered how that could happen, since he died (and we mean really died, not soap opera died) of a brain tumor around 6 years ago. Would he be a ghost? A hallucination only a patient can see? Would he be Mark's long-lost twin brother (Matt, or maybe Monty) who comes to work at County because his brother worked there? The news that Dr. Mark Greene is going to interact somehow with new doctor Cate Banfield (Angela Bassett) just makes the scenario more confusing.

But now we have our answer. Edwards tells the AP that Mark will be shown via flashback in an ER story we haven't seen before.

At the NBC party for the TCA press tour earlier this month, there was a small contingent of ER cast members floating around, but two of them happened to be my favorites: Linda Cardellini and Parminder Nagra (what, you think I was going to say Shane West?). Both actresses seem to be more prominently involved in the veteran show's storylines this year: Cardellini's Samantha Taggart has already had to deal with killing her fugitive ex-husband and now is trying to figure out how to control a son whose behavior is going south, and Nagra's Neela Rasgotra has been in a torrid affair with John Stamos' character, Tony Gates.

I caught up with both of them and asked them about how they think the year's been going so far and what's in store for each of their characters during the remainder of the season.

For those of you who watched last week's ER and thought, "Whoa! Weaver got fired?!", you're not alone. But if you also thought that there might be an opening for Laura Innes' character to stick around, you'd be wrong. Innes tells TVGuide.com that she's definitely leaving the show after tonight's episode; she may come back for an episode or two next year, but that's about it.

(S13E12) Well, that was unexpected.

Laura Innes' character, Doctor Kerry Weaver, wasn't in many episodes over the last few years, but it looked like she was coming back into the normal ER fold. It started late last season when the issues with her degenerative hip condition were resolved, allowing her to walk freely without the need of a crutch. Then, after preventing Kovac from getting fired, she was demoted back down to the ER as a mere attending. She became a medical reporter for a local Chicago news broadcast, and she began dating her segment producer. Things were looking up for Kerry.

Now, it looks like she's leaving for good.

What's happening on ER these days? It must be something big because the NBC hospital drama made a huge comeback last week, beating out a repeat of Without a Trace with 15.4 million viewers. Yes, it was a repeat. But, even the repeats on CBS have been kicking NBC's butt lately.

I gave up on ER years ago, even before George Clooney left, because I couldn't handle having a major emotional breakdown each week. I tuned in for a couple of key episodes over the years: i.e. when Lucy and Carter got stabbed in the kidneys, when Doug left, when Carol left, and when Dr. Green died.

So tell me, is it any good?