Er 1/15/04 (1 Viewer)

"nicu"

Abby and Neela spend a rotation in the NICU and go through the ups and downs of watching babies premature and sick fight for their young lives.

Neela has a hard time dealing with the uncertainty of neonatal care, and the issues dealing with child abandonment. Abby helps a family through the ordeal of losing a child so young, so quickly as a blood infection leads to damaged intestines which leave the baby without the means to grow and thrive.

Sandy and Kerry have a baby boy, Kerry kept Sandy's pregnancy a secret all the way through.

This episode did its best to show that the NICU is a tough place to practice medicine, it is heartbreaking when babies lose the fight, in spite of efforts to help in treatment.

I have to wonder if the writers are doing their best to transition the main lead from Carter to Abby if/when Noah Wyle leaves. It feels that way.

Anyone reading watch this from Dallas/FW? I've had ongoing audio/video sync issues on NBC5 DTV for weeks and tonight it was terrible. CBS DTV was fine by comparison, ABC was a little off. Not sure if it's my HD decoder (built-in my Sony WS550) or it's just crappy control by NBC.

N

It was okay, but I do not like the episodes of ER with narrow focus on just one or two characters. For example This is the 2nd week in a row that Lewis has not appeared. I don't know why they didn't kill her instead of Romano because they certainly haven't found much of anything for her to do. Carter and Weaver, Pratt, and Corday make token appearances. No Gallant (as usual)

I sure hope they are not planning to give this series to Maura Tierney. Not that she is a bad actress, but I could never get to really like her character

There were some emotional moments, but I wish this show would get back to an ensemble show instead of a virtually single +1 week to week character showcase.

Yes, the DFW HDTV feed was unwatchable. Panasonic POS DirecTV receiver in case that helps.

I really liked this episode, the wife being pregnant probably makes it more poignant for me, truthfully...

Just more comments from Abby's development/transition to doctorhood:

Abby's always had the gift of being a good doctor, it was her circumstances that prevented her from getting through med school, so she had to settle for nursing when she was added to the show. I applaud the writers for using Maura in ways that definitely keep her character's arc interesting and challenging (because Abby's far from perfect outside the ER, and has plenty of personal demons inside of her). There was a time where Abby's wacky family dragged ER down, I blame it on Sally Field getting an Emmy and the writers almost felt obligated to bring Abby's mom back, to the detriment of the show that year, and then her wacked out brother storyline didn't help either. But now they are finally letting the doctor inside of Abby shine through.