Northern Exposure is an American comedy-drama television series that originally aired on CBS from July 12, 1990, to July 26, 1995, with a total of 110 episodes. The series follows the eccentric residents in the fictitious town of Cicely, Alaska. Rob Morrow starred as New York City native Dr. Joel Fleischman, whose med school tuition was underwritten by the government of Alaska in exchange for him practicing medicine for four years in the state.
In the first episode, the newly graduated doctor is shocked to learn that instead of being assigned to a modern hospital in Anchorage as he had expected, he is being sent to the remote town of Cicely to serve as the area's only general practitioner. The first season was centered around Fleischman's fish-out-of-water experiences in rural Alaska and his attempts to get out of his contract. As the series progressed, it developed into more of an ensemble show, with episodes focused on other residents of the town.
Northern Exposure received 57 award nominations during its six-season run and won 27, including the 1992 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series, two additional Primetime Emmy Awards, four Creative Arts Emmy Awards, and two Golden Globes.Awards for Northern Exposure from IMDb
History The series was created by Joshua Brand and John Falsey, who also created the award-winning shows St. Elsewhere and I'll Fly Away, in addition to the show A Year in the Life. It started as a mid-season replacement summer series on CBS in 1990 with eight episodes.Producing Northern Exposure from the website for the book Two Aspirins and a Comedy ()Review/Television; As Networks Go Rural, CBS Goes a Bit Further, an April 1991 article in The New York Times It returned for seven more episodes in spring 1991, then became a regular part of the network's schedule in 1991–92. It ranked among the top 10 viewed by 18- to 49-year-olds, and was part of the network's 1992–93 and 1993–94 schedules.
In 1994, writer Sandy Veith won a lawsuit against Universal, alleging that the series was based on an idea he conceived for which he received no credit or compensation. Veith subsequently won $10 million in damages and legal fees on appeal three years later. The Los Angeles Times reported that Brand and Falsey were not included in the allegations and that jurors seemed to believe the studio brought the basic concept for the show to them rather than that they knowingly stole Veith's idea. Veith's original idea was about an Italian-American doctor who moves to a small town in the South. In 1994, the same year that the lawsuit was filed, Brand and Falsey resigned. David Chase was brought in to serve as executive producer. He later went on to say that he took the job purely for the money, stating that he disliked the premise of the show; Brand cited Chase as having run the show into the ground.
In January 1995, the show moved from Monday to Wednesday, and in May 1995 there was a gap during sweeps when CBS broadcast other programming. At one point, Barry Corbin wrote an open letter to TV critics that called the show "an understandably weakened show". On May 24, 1995, CBS announced the cancelation of the show, which had its final episode shown on July 26. "The show had a lot of life in it, and the move (Wednesday at 10pm) killed it," said executive producer Andrew Schneider. "This piddling out is sad."
Morrow and his representatives spent much of seasons 4 and 5 lobbying for an improved contract, and intermittently threatened to leave the show. Universal Television sued him in 1992 after he refused to show up on set to in protest. Morrow decided to leave the show in 1994. The producers responded by reducing Fleischman's role in the storylines, and introducing characters such as Mike Monroe (season 4) and Dr. Phil Capra (season 6) to partially compensate for the absence of Morrow, whose last appearance came midway through the show's final season.
Cast and characters
Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow) is a neurotic young Jewish physician from New York City. Fresh out of family medicine residency, he is legally contracted to practice medicine for four years in Alaska according to the terms of a student loan underwritten by the state. Expecting to work in a relatively large, modern hospital in Anchorage, he is unexpectedly reassigned to be a general practitioner in the small town of Cicely, where he is a proverbial fish out of water. His struggles to adjust to the very unfamiliar environment drive the plot of many episodes, especially in the early seasons. Morrow left the show midway through its final season due to a contract dispute. His character's departure was handled by having him "go native", abandoning Cicely for a remote fishing village and embracing the wilderness in a search for spiritual enlightenment. Maurice Minnifield (Barry Corbin) is a multi-millionaire businessman, Korean War fighter pilot and astronaut who moved to the area after retiring from the military in the 1970s. Maurice owns Cicely's newspaper and radio station, along with over of land which he hopes to develop into the "Alaskan Riviera". It is Maurice who arranged to bring Joel to the town, which previously did not have a physician. Beneath a thin veneer of gentility, he is pompous, overbearing, and bigoted, leading to conflicts with other residents, such as the gay couple Ron and Eric. Despite his demeanor, Maurice can be generous, and he aids almost every other major character in some way during the show's run. Before the timeline of the series, he had brought the much younger Shelly Tambo to Cicely with the intention of marrying her, but she ended up marrying his best friend Holling Vincoeur instead. Maggie O'Connell (Janine Turner) is a tomboyish Grosse Pointe, Michigan-born debutante turned Alaska bush pilot. Maggie and Joel quickly develop a love-hate relationship, with their opposing views on most subjects coupled with unacknowledged attraction resulting in sexual tension in the early seasons. Later in the show's run they become romantically involved and agree (briefly) to marry. It is their breakup that is the impetus for Joel to leave Cicely during the last season. A running theme through the series is that nearly all of Maggie's romantic partners die in bizarre ways (one is struck by a falling satellite), leading others to wonder if she suffers from an "O'Connell curse". Only two boyfriends escape this fate: Joel and Mike Monroe, who is hyperallergic to most things but, in a reversal of the curse, is cured. Holling Vincoeur (John Cullum) is the Canadian-born sexagenarian owner and operator of The Brick, a popular bar and restaurant, and mayor at the beginning of the show. He and Maurice are old friends, though their relationship was strained at one time by their shared romantic interest in Shelly Tambo, whom Holling married. Though over 40 years older than Shelly, he fears that he will outlive her, as the men in his family tend to live well past 100 and spend their final years as heartbroken widowers. Shelly Tambo (Cynthia Geary) is another Canadian expatriate and former Miss Northwest Passage, originally from Saskatoon. 18-years-old at the beginning of season one, she was brought to Cicely by Maurice, who had hoped to marry her. Instead, she chose Holling and became a waitress at The Brick. Though seemingly naive and flighty, she regularly shows flashes of unexpected wisdom. It was planned for the character to be a Native American until Geary was cast. Chris Stevens (John Corbett) is a philosophical free spirit and ex-convict who hails from West Virginia and works as the disc jockey at the radio station. Between songs, Chris comments on events in Cicely and on more intellectual and controversial subjects, often leading to conflict with Maurice, who fires and rehires him several times over the course of the series. The first of these conflicts comes when Chris reads Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass over the air and mentions that Whitman was gay, causing an infuriated Maurice to storm into the studio to punch and fire him. Chris is also a nondenominational clergyman and occasionally officiates at weddings. Ed Chigliak (Darren E. Burrows) is a young, mild-mannered, half-native Alaskan foundling raised by local Tlingits. Ed does odd jobs for Maurice and works part-time at the local general store. He is a film buff and aspiring movie director. Ruth-Anne Miller (Peg Phillips) is the elderly, level-headed owner of the local general store and a 30-year resident of Cicely. A widow, Ruth-Anne lives alone until late in the series, when she becomes involved with Walt Kupfer, a fur trapper and retired stockbroker. She too is a film buff and, along with Holling, a keen birder. She has two adult sons, one of whom is a stockbroker. He comes to see her in one episode. Marilyn Whirlwind (Elaine Miles) is an Alaska Native (Tlingit) and she works as Joel's receptionist. Her few words and exceptionally placid demeanor are a strong contrast to her employer's loquaciousness and high-strung temperament.
In the show's last season, two new characters were introduced to fill the void left by Morrow's departure: Phil Capra (Paul Provenza), a doctor from Los Angeles who is recruited as Joel's replacement after Joel takes to the wilderness. Michelle Schowdowski Capra (Teri Polo), Phil's wife. She also works as a reporter for a newspaper owned by Maurice.
Major recurring characters include: Rick Pederson (Grant Goodeve), Maggie's pilot boyfriend who is killed by a falling satellite Lester Haines (Apesanahkwat), a native millionaire Walt Kupfer (Moultrie Patten), an ex-Wall Street broker turned pelt hunter Mike Monroe (Anthony Edwards), an environmental activist with multiple chemical sensitivity Bernard Stevens (Richard Cummings Jr.), Chris's African-American half-brother and "spiritual doppelgänger" Leonard Quinhagak (Graham Greene), a local shaman and Marilyn's cousin Barbara Semanski (Diane Delano), Local officer for the Alaska State Troopers and Maurice's love interest Erick Reese Hillman (Don McManus) and Ronald Arthur Bantz (Doug Ballard), a gay couple arrive and set up a business in Cicely. They eventually marry. Adam (Adam Arkin), an abrasive, belligerent, poorly-groomed master chef who continually tells outrageous stories about himself. The show is deliberately obscure as to when he is lying or his stories are true Eve (Valerie Mahaffey), Adam's hypochondriac and very wealthy wife. Mahaffey was the only actor from the series to win a Primetime Emmy Award. Dave the Cook (William J. White), a cook at the Brick Eugene (Earl Quewezance), a cook at the Brick (replaced Dave in Season 5)
Production In Season 6, Episode 15, Joel mails a post card to Maggie from Manhattan, and the zip code of Cicely is shown to be 99729, which serves a part of Denali Borough including the town of Cantwell.
However, most filming locations were in Roslyn, Washington. "Northern Exposure II" (the main production facility) was in Redmond, Washington, in what is now the headquarters of Genie Industries, behind a business park.
According to The Northern Exposure Book, the moose in the opening titles was named Mort and was provided by Washington State University, where he was part of a captive herd. To film the opening sequence, the crew fenced off Roslyn, set Mort loose, and lured him around with food.
Episodes
Notable episodes in the series include the pilot (nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Writing), the third season's last episode, "Cicely" (which won a Peabody Award, three Creative Arts Emmy Awards, and a Directors Guild of America Award), and the fifth-season episode "I Feel the Earth Move", which featured the second same-sex marriage story arc on U.S. prime-time television. (Fox's Roc aired the first U.S. prime-time television episode depicting a same-sex marriage, "Can't Help Loving That Man", on October 20, 1991.)
Reception