The Good
This show was still solid and interestingly entertaining in its 7th season.
The Bad
No real Special Features.
ER: The Complete Seventh Season gives us 22 episodes from one of the best hospital dramas to ever find its way on the air. Focusing on the goings on both in and out of an emergency room in Chicago, this season can best be described as one of transition. First of all, we open with Dr. Carter (Noah Wyle) recovering in rehab, Dr, Greene (Anthony Edwards) marrying Dr. Corday (Alex Kingston), eventually Dr. Weaver (Laura Innes) comes out and Dr. Benton (Eriq La Salle) seems to be struggling to get his mojo back. This doesn’t even mention the other members of the cast who all seem to be dealing with their own issues. What makes ER stand out is how much it humanizes the characters while never sacrificing any of the inherent drama that resides within that.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
I could mention a bunch of the other episodes in an effort to prove my point, but, considering the recent events at Virginia Tech, I was amazed at how much the episode “Rampage” resonated with me. This show doesn’t ever seem to take a moral high or low ground. It simply presents us the characters and the situations they face and its up to the viewer to decide just how life or death all their situations are in ER: The Complete Seventh Season.
Features
Outpatient Outtakes
Despite offering very few extras they have surely packed in a bevy of outtakes. In fact, it seems like they have included them for almost every episode. They all look really good in a visual sense but audio-wise I feel they sound somewhat hollow. Having watched through a bunch of these it seems like they were mainly cut for time reasons. Still, its good that they show them to us here because I feel they fleshed out the characters. There are longer scenes that show Dr. Carter breaking down more in rehab, or we see short scenes that occur before major scenes that serve to give us more character nuance. Truthfully, you won’t be wasting your time watching any of this.
Gag Reel
Actors get hit with props, they bump their heads, they fall down… its a regular slapstick affair on this release. They also mess up lines, laugh for no reason and I particularly enjoyed seeing Eriq La Salle bump his funny bone. With all the mishaps going on it is amazing the cast and crew didn’t end up in a real life ER. Certainly check this out as it plays as one long piece and it breaks the tension many of these actors normally have around them.
Video
Widescreen Version. Presented in a “Matted” widescreen format preserving the aspect ratio of its original television exhibition. Enhanced for Widescreen TVs. I may not have watched this show that much when its been on TV but I have seen it (when something airs for over 13 seasons how can you really miss it?). The DVD compression that Warner Bros. has done is incredible. The colors are all super sharp but I never felt like they were over compressed. At no point did I notice any muddiness with the darker colors, and even amidst all the quick cutting and action of the emergency room, everything stayed quite well composed.
Audio
Dolby Digital. English - Stereo. The audio here was good but nothing about it really grabbed me like its visual presentation. Things seemed to be adequately leveled over this 6 disc set, and considering there’s 978 minutes of content that is saying something. I noticed that the characters don’t really talk in whispers and I was quite happy to hear (literally) that. Things are very normal in the audio department but I guess thats really all you can expect, right?
Package
Compacting 6 discs into an economical piece of packaging is no easy feat but Warner Bros. seems to have done a good job of it here. Personally, I think a lot of these releases could use a little bit of the Paramount way of doing things (6 discs in an amaray case), but the packaging for ER: The Complete Seventh Season is more exciting. The front slipcase cover features images of all the main cast members, as well as a gray and white shot from the show. The back cover features more color images taken directly from the show, a description of what this Seventh Season is about, a Special Features listing, a cast list and technical specs. All 6 discs come in one piece of artwork that pulls out, and it contains more pictures and information about the episodes and bonus features.
Final Word
Considering the language on this show and the frank way that the actors address one another, I had to ask myself if what passed the censors back in 2000 would make it to the small screen in 2007. I know that its only been 7 years but a lot can change in that amount of time. It seems like the television climate has even become more strict since then. We live in a society, to paraphrase Ice-T, that essentially tells people they have freedom of speech but they better watch what they say. This show deals with issues like homophobia, drug abuse, patients rights, health issues and while some of these themes might seem like they could be considered tame, ER doesn’t take the easy way out. For example, without giving too much away, when Greene is diagnosed with being ill there are many different ways this show could have handled it. It could have made it something small that the character has to live with, or it could have made it define the Greene character. It did it in a way that really seemed to benefit the show.
Having not watched too much ER on regular TV, its really nice to rediscover it on DVD. I might be behind in some ways but at least I have started watching, right?
ER was released .
