Thoughts on St. Elsewhere and China Beach

 

Courtesy YouTube/Giphy

"I hate hospitals."
"Yeah, this one's a dump. But I'm gonna turn it around."

I hadn't planned to watch St. Elsewhere's last two episodes alongside the feature-length pilot to China Beach, but I'm pleasantly surprised at how well they pair together. Farewells are the name of the game today. Everyone from Ellen Craig (Bonnie Bartlett) to Laurette Barber (Chloe Webb) doesn't plan on staying much longer, and a few of them follow through. But then again, can a TV character ever really fully leave his or her setting? The folks who depart from St. Eligius are getting out of an environment that was imagined by an autistic boy. Most departures from the 510 Evacuation Hospital have died in and from the Vietnam War. McMurphy (Dana Delany)'s planned last night, including an attack during her USO entertainer cosplaying, is followed by her decision to stay. It's like McMurphy knows she wouldn't exist otherwise. At least at this point in China Beach. Later seasons depicted McMurphy's post-war life, but TV writing in 1988 generally was episode by episode, not necessarily in service of an arc that would take years to reach its full resonance.

Elsewhere ended with 16 main characters and a handful of memorable guest stars. Axelrod (Stephen Furst) has died by "The Abby Singer Show" and "The Last One." He's soon followed by Auschlander (Norman Lloyd), who had teamed up with Gideon (Ronny Cox) to ensure St. Eligius would again be diocese-owned and employing Westphall (Ed Flanders), who's brought along his son Tommy (Chad Allen). Griffin (Bruce Greenwood) learns he doesn't actually have AIDS. Craig (William Daniels), after some unexpectedly wise words from Ehrlich (Ed Begley Jr.), knows he wants to stay with Ellen, even if her new life's in Cleveland. Ehrlich and Lucy (Jennifer Savidge) are able to move forward from her miscarriage. Chandler (Denzel Washington) both reunites with Roxanne (Alfre Woodard) and gives up medicine. There's no happy ending for Boomer (David Morse) and Novino (Cindy Pickett). They never even had sex before he decided to reunite with wife Joanne*. The last five are Fiscus (Howie Mandel), who keeps prolonging his last day of work; Rosenthal (Christina Pickles), who briefly makes nice with Lucy; Hawkins (Eric Laneuville), who takes Auschlander's death the hardest; Kiem (France Nuyen), who learns to make kugel from Fiscus' newly-widowed, ashes-sprinking mother (Lainie Kazan); and Wade (Sagan Lewis), who puts up with the asshole parents (Cristine Rose and William Sadler) of little dying Debbie Oppenheimer (Judith Barsi, who sadly died not long after "Singer"), takes herself off the case, gets drunk and has a mini-Wendy Wasserstein play.

*Joanne was played by Patricia Wettig, so really, it's a matter of a Woman of 1988 TV's ascendancy. Wettig gets the guy and eventually several Emmys. Novino's so upset, I bet she cried about it nine times.

"... All the time I was with Robert, I never knew if I wanted kids. But boy, was the pressure on! Not from our folks. From our friends. Baby pictures, baby showers. One guy actually said to Robert, you never know what it's like to be a son until you have been a father. So many of our friends wanted to have a baby and not be parents. One birth, that was it, for the experience. *something incoherent* So many intelligent, funny, talented women I know got scared. Cause their jobs or marriages weren't as satisfying as Ms. magazine led us to believe, so they rushed out and got pregnant before the alarm on their bio clock went off. And now, even though they love their kids, they resent the role of mother. I would have. ... Maybe that's why she put me up for adoption. My birth mother. I wonder why she left me. I wish I knew. ... I wish I knew."

There's much angst in "Singer" and "Last." Mrs. Fiscus isn't cut out for tending to AIDS babies. Her bedside manner, on the other hand, was much more impressive than the supervising nurse's. The episodes also had a lot of in-joking. The Doctor of the Year awards are disrupted by a fire, represented with recycled Towering Inferno footage. Lucy, waiting for Ehrlich's return, attended the event with her spy in-laws (Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows). Lech and Olga later sing "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" at a piano surrounded by Axelrod's dad (Louis Nye) and Morrison's dad (Tom Poston). Lech eventually says "Tonight's show is over." Before that, Mr. Morrison helped with efforts to keep the guests safe. "I'm kind of a handyman." The many shout outs in "Last" to characters/series' final episodes include orderly Coolidge (Byron Stewart) and an amputee patient in a Fugitive situation, Novino preparing to perform Henry Blake's autopsy and a re-enactment of the WJM gang's hard-to-break group hug. "Last" is best remembered for the twist that St. Elsewhere was all just a figment of Tommy Westphall's imagination, but I think audiences and TV historians shouldn't just focus on the episode's last minutes. Yes, things got maudlin (Fiscus, leave already!), but also genuinely heartwarming. Looking at you, Auschlander's last speech or Boomer receiving his "I Survived St. Elsewhere" baseball cap and then observing the hustle and bustle one last time. The jury's out on Boomer's pre-breakup speech.

"All of medicine is as confused as we are. Med school enrollment is down, what with malpractice and such. Becoming a doctor is no longer a shortcut to being a millionaire. ... But the quality of medicine is improving. It's better because those who are going in are doing so for purer, nobler reasons. ... And even though technology is advancing faster than those of us who use it can comprehend, even though specialization hospitals is threatening general healthcare in certain communities and even though there are all kinds of ethical complications evolving, medicine is still about one thing: healing people."

"Why'd you come here?"

"To do that, to help the decent boys."

"Help the boys?"

"My brother came here and he wasn't like that, not when he came."

"With donuts, huh? You make it worse in that little outfit. A tease. One more thing they can't have. I know what they want and I give it to 'em. Well, I don't exactly give it to 'em."

"You what?"

"Duty, honor, country. I know all about honor. I honor Master Charge, BankAmericard, American Express."

"I don't believe you."

"Oh, you want to be faithful to your girl, your wife? How 'bout some stocks? Jade? I sell whatever sells. I got a heart of gold. As long as it's 14 to 24 karat."

"That's disgusting."

"What do you give 'em? Some nice chit chat? ... Then you send them out there to be shot at. Or shafted. Or maybe begin a lifelong relationship with a green piece of plastic that zips. Take off the invisible white gloves. Open your eyes. We do the same thing. 'Cept I perform a real service."

Things are comparatively more intimate in Beach's pilot, which features nine lead characters including five women. Despite an impressive introduction, including telling the donut dollies and Laurette's trio** that she's been there since the beginning of time and has seen everything, Lila (Concetta Tomei) takes a backseat to the McMurphy-Laurette, Cherry (Nan Woods)-K.C. (Marg Helgenberger) and Cherry-McMurphy pairs. I think what I liked most about each duo that none felt generic. I would never confuse how McMurphy and Cherry engage with one another -- like after their showering was spied upon and captured on film by "boys" in a helicopter -- with how McMurphy would engage with Laurette. The guys aren't quite so idiosyncratic. I had to look at my notes to tell the difference between Boonie (Brian Wimmer), the lifeguard who's got a past with K.C., and Natch (Tim Ryan), who'd like to get with McMurphy. On the other hand, I quickly got Dr. Richard (Robert Picardo), who likes to time his work in the emergency room, and to a lesser extent, the then-supporting character of PTSD-afflicted Dodger (Jeff Kober). Beach's ensemble is complete with Beckett (Michael Boatman). He, like Cherry, gets disillusioned by corrupt leaders. She's nearly raped by Endicott (Christopher Allport) and he listens to the gibberish of Ambassador Weymouth (James Cromwell). At least Beckett made sure Weymouth got some formaldehyde to drink and Dodger rescued Cherry.

**Including Gail O'Grady as Georgia, who gets food poisoning from carelessly eating wet market items.

If that's not enough drama, remember that Beach was a show set amid the Vietnam War just over a decade after it ended. Tension is introduced almost right from the beginning, when McMurphy cuts short her R&R at the beach to go back to work. Things escalate with the reveal of Cherry's mission to find her brother Rick, everyone's palpable stress about the environment they're in (I smirked at LBJ's picture being on a dartboard), the climactic nighttime attack, followed by Laurette trying to keep up the spirits of the badly-burned soldier and the one-two punch of McMurphy having lost nearly everything and her realizing that she has an even bigger family at the base than she does back home. I've never seen any of Beach until now, so I'm curious if McMurphy came to regret her decision to stay in Vietnam. She did seem fairly adamant about getting out of there before it reached the time where she could act on that want. Yes, I'm aware of the irony of me, Mr. "The Week in Journalism," commenting about a person being so wishy-washy about staying or going.

"Be glad that you can cry. Everyone needs a release. Don't steal that from yourself. Do it while you can."

Thoughts:

-- "(Fiscus meets Neil from an opera ensemble) If you're gonna dress like a viking, make it Fran Tarkenton."

-- Awards Watch, Elsewhere: The show received eight Emmy nominations and one win, for Mark Tinker's direction, in 1988. Nominees included Kazan and Woodward for their guest performances in "Singer," the writing team of "Last," the show itself and Begley Jr., Bartlett and Pickles in the supporting categories. I didn't even mention that by the time Elsewhere ended, Helen had battled drug addiction.

-- Awards Watch, Beach: The pilot received Emmy nominations for its writing and direction. For 1988-89, Delany won her first Emmy, Webb was nominated as a guest actress and the show picked up a nod.

-- Behind the Cameras, Elsewhere: Laneuville directed "Singer," which had a story by Channing Gibson & John Tinker and a teleplay by Tom Fontana. Mark Tinker not only directed "Last," he also co-wrote the teleplay with Bruce Paltrow from a story by Fontana, Gibson and John Tinker.

-- Behind the Cameras, Beach: Rod Holcomb directed the pilot, written by John Sacret Young. The latter man would end up directing and co-writing Beach's finale.

-- Hey, It's ...!: Amy Yasbeck in Beach's pilot, as a flight attendant. She threatens to castrate a passenger who wants to trick her into feeling his crotch.

-- Fanservice Junction: Take your pick. They're all from Beach. We have McMurphy dolled up like a Supreme, the pink shorts-clad baseball player or Boonie spending the end credits with his ass to the camera.

-- Fun With Coincidences (Or Are They?): If I heard Lech correctly in "Singer," Lucy's due date was Sept. 27. Sept. 27, 1988, as you should know by now, was my birthday. Lech said either Sept. 22 or Sept. 27, but I'm assuming the latter since that was the day Tonight Starring Steve Allen premiered nationwide in 1954. And Sept. 27, 1972, is Gwyneth Paltrow's birthday. I also wonder if Mr. Pearson talking up Alaska in "Last" wasn't a stealth teaser for Brandon Falsey ... 'scuse me, Brand and Falsey's upcoming Northern Exposure.

-- "(after McMurphy and Laurette do "Hound Dog") Diddy-boppin' white chicks."

-- Next: A double feature of Designing Women and Murphy Brown. On deck: Roseanne.