Kevin's Watch

Iolanthe wrote:I didn't know there were DVDs. Just looked at Amazon and they are available so I may get one for our wedding anniversary present! It's over 20 years since I last saw it so I've forgotten a lot of the plots, but I remember the piano fling, and odd moments. Maurice was an ex-astronaut I think? Ruth Ann had the shop?

I own the collection. It is a great investment.

Maurice was the ex-astronaut. I just finished the episode where he decides to adopt Chris and teach him the finer things in life like croquet. I really don't think the series came into it's own until the second season, where they began to focus on the other characters. Ruth Ann was the shop owner, and tons of other characters.

On the last episode of the first season they introduce Adam, the paranoid ex-CIA operative and chef extraordinaire. One of my favorite characters.

Iolanthe wrote:I didn't know there were DVDs. Just looked at Amazon and they are available so I may get one for our wedding anniversary present! It's over 20 years since I last saw it so I've forgotten a lot of the plots, but I remember the piano fling, and odd moments. Maurice was an ex-astronaut I think? Ruth Ann had the shop?

I've posted this quote several times here at the Watch. But you can't overdo some things, so here it is again:

I've been out here now for some days, groping my way along, trying to realize my vision here. I started concentrating so hard on my vision that I lost sight. I've come to find out that it's not the vision. It's not the vision at all. It's the groping. It's the groping, it's the yearning, it's the moving forward. I was so fixated on that flying cow that, when Ed told me Monty Python already painted that picture, thought I was through. I had to let go of that cow so that I could see all the other possibilities....... I think Kierkegard said it oh so well: “The self is only that which it’s in the process of becoming.” Art? Same thing. James Joyce had something to say about it too: “Welcome oh life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience, and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscious of my race.” We’re here today to fling something that bubbled up from the collective unconsciousness of our community......... The thing I learned folks, this is absolutely key: It’s not the thing you fling, it’s the fling itself.

Just finished "Running of the bulls" one of my favorite episodes where they are all waiting for the ice to crack. I love the end where all the men are running down main street buck naked. Great episode, great music.

I wish there was a small town like Cicely where I could grow old(er).

Cast then and now
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bdwZCZO5Ck


Joel's Christmas angst
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O7WJ9himpU

Christy and I watch the whole series over a few months, ending a couple months ago. Just like going home!

There will never ever be a show that comes close to Northern Exposure. never.

Final scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRlaZ5zBDjA

Chris discusses physics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm14NI7AxtU

I've seen about a third of the episodes of this television show. It's quirky, as Iolanthe has posted, and that is certainly part of its charm for me. I may get around to owning all of the episodes, yet. At present, I have just three of them, given to me on VHS by my younger sister, who wanted to make her video library all DVD.

I have the first episode, with Joel coming to Cicely. Northern Exposure's television debut coincided roughly with my moving from Missouri to Arizona (a state I had never been to before, and where I knew absolutely no one) to accept a job as a wildlife biologist. It was a bit of a fish-out-of-water experience for me, as Alaska was for Dr. Joel Fleishman (spelled right?). I'd stopped watching TV as a habit sometime in my early teen years, and here I was trying to be part of a research crew that stayed in a somewhat primitive mountain camp for ten-day work weeks, where there was nothing to do after work but fix meals, read, and /or watch TV (I usually opted to read or go to my collection of arranged tree stumps to practice drumming on them). Most of the crew were addicted to watching TV; I was not, and my nonconformity in refusing to gather round in the main tent to watch TV with them was noted and perhaps even resented (we had a generator to provide power for early evening cooking and lights).

But I could make an exception at times for boycotting TV when Northern Exposure was on. The show made me laugh and think at unexpected moments. Something about it just worked for me. Sometimes I would miss episodes because I had had all I could take of being around my co-workers, too. I just mention this to explain why I didn't catch all the episodes when the show originally aired. There are still many episodes in the final two seasons that I haven't gotten around to seeing.

The other two episodes I have are "Cicely", about the town's founding, and "Northwest Passages", about Marilyn wanting to drive and Maggie turning 30 and Maurice wanting to write his autobiography. The show was surprisingly intimate on its own terms, and watching the show made me feel like I was a citizen of that place. My favorite episode is probably "Northern Lights", about the Japanese tourists coming to Cicely so they can copulate when the aurora borealis was happening, in belief that such timing would gain them intelligent offspring. Maybe it's because I like to see Maurice taken aback that no one wants to hear his self-congratulatory speeches; I don't know.

This is my first post in the TV Shows sub-forum, and it's because of the unusual vibe of this show that I've bothered to post in this part of the Watch. (I usually prefer PBS science, history, and news programs if I watch TV at all).

Rob Morrow's doctor may not have been every viewer's favorite character, but when he left the show lost its stand-in for the audience, and CBS switching the show's time slot from Mondays to Wednesdays caused a ratings free-fall for NX as well. And somehow the writing got less inspired by the sixth season, or so I've been told. But I'm glad this show happened, and it would be nice to one day visit Roslyn, Washington to see where it all occurred. And that's all I can think of to say about NX, for now.

Northern Exposure is on Prime, in case anybody didn't know.

Best
Show
Evet

Roslyn (aka Cicely) is not far from here. Watchers planning to visit the site who want to meet other community members can make their intentions known; raising at least enough Watchers to qualify for a mini-Elohimfest ought to be doable.

@Cord Hurn I'm sorry I never saw your post before. Don't know how I missed it. I hope you've seen it all. If not, now you can watch it all! My wife and I will be doing so when we finish The Sopranos. I've seen it a few times. My wife only once, but apparently liked it enough to suggest we watch it again, without even knowing it's on Prime now.

Thank you for letting me know it is on Prime now, Fist!
A friend has seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 on DVD and loaned them to me, so now all I have to do is see season 5! Looking forward to it!

Excellent!