I stopped watching ER before my long vacation to India. The wife and I usually watch prime time shows on our DVR. Since we were going to be gone for a while, we started stopping scheduled recordings for most shows and kept only key critical ones.

ER was not one of them. It was good, but they seemed to be losing the plot a bit with John Stamos’ character and the digression with his love life and Neela’s dreams and stuff. Basically, it was all nonsense that does not make for good drama at prime time.

Anyway, since there was not much to watch, and since I am by myself nowadays, I put ER back on the schedule. And I just watched last night’s episode.

Last night’s show was fantastic. Forest Whitaker’s character was always scary (he’s been on as a guest star for a few episodes), but in this one he really made it a treat to watch ER. Just as a background, his character suffered a stroke long time back at the ER when Luka was the doctor in charge of his treatment. Forest Whitaker’s character had come to the hospital just for some minor pain and he was diagnosed with some murmur in the heart or something, and he was advised some medication for the heart but just like a lot of other conspiracy theorists, he felt the medication was pushed by the pharmaceutical companies and it was not truly required. As a result he got a stroke and lost the use of his left hand.

There is a lawsuit and the judge and the jury ruled in the doctor’s favor. It was of course not liked by Forest and he starts stalking Luka and threatening him. In this episode he somehow enters Luka and Abby’s apartment with a gun because he was fired. He was bitter because he kept thinking what he fell into was not his fault.

His conversation with Abby was great drama, and then of course when he takes Luka hostage and all the discussions he has with him are exceptional. He is a great actor and I am sure we’ll see more of him in the future.

As a side note, I am not too certain which side I want to take. I can understand the doctor’s side which is the county hospital ER was crowded, noisy and he had too many patients to cover. Also, he offered a stroke medicine which the patient flatly refused to take. But on the other hand, there is the patient’s side which is that he came for a small pain, which was diagnosed to be a big thing, and it ended up being a stroke and he lost his wife, and finally his job because of that.

It does make you think … but in any case, ER is back, and I am certainly going to watch it every week! Back on the DVR schedule it goes 🙂

Cross posted at Desicritics.org