Northern Exposure

Northern Exposure
Format	Comedy-drama
Created by	Joshua Brand John Falsey
Starring	Rob Morrow Barry Corbin Janine Turner John Cullum Darren E. Burrows John Corbett Cynthia Geary Elaine Miles Peg Phillips
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	110 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	1990-1993: Joshua Brand and John Falsey 1994-1995: David Chase, Diane Frolov, and Andrew Schneider
Running time	Approx 45 minutes per episode
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Original run	July 12, 1990 – July 26, 1995

Northern Exposure is an American television series that ran on CBS from 1990 to 1995, with a total of 110 episodes. The series was given a pair of consecutive Peabody Awards: in 1991–92 for the show's "depict[ion] in a comedic and often poetic way, [of] the cultural clash between a transplanted New York doctor and the townspeople of fictional Cicely, Alaska"^[1] and its stories of "people of different backgrounds and experiences" clashing but ultimately "strive to accept their differences and co-exist."^[1]

It received a total of 57 award nominations during its five-year run and won 27, including the 1992 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series, two additional Primetime Emmy Awards, four Creative Arts Emmy Awards, and two Golden Globes.^[2]

The series was created by Brand-Falsey Productions. Critic John Leonard called Northern Exposure "the best of the best television in the past 10 years."^[3]

History

The show started as an eight-episode summer replacement series on CBS in 1990.^[3][4][5] It returned for seven more episodes in spring 1991, then became a regular part of the network's schedule in 1991-92, where it was among the top 10 among 18 to 49-year-olds^[6], as well as in 1992-93, and 1993-94. Its last season, 1994-95, included a gap during May sweeps when CBS broadcast other programming.

Northern Exposure began with a focus on Joel Fleischman as an audience-identification character for urban "lower 48" viewers, with storylines revolving around his fish-out-of-water difficulties adjusting to Alaska, and his hot-and-cold romantic involvements with Maggie O'Connell. As Northern Exposure continued, supporting characters such as Chris, Ed, Holling, Shelly, Maurice and Ruth-Anne (along with recurring characters such as Adam and Eve, Barbara Semanski and Bernard) received more developmment.

Morrow and his representatives spent much of Seasons 4 and 5 lobbying for an improved contract, and intermittently threatened to leave the show. The producers responded by reducing Fleischman's role in the storylines, and introducing characters such as Mike Monroe (season 4) and Dr. Phil Capra (season 6) to partially compensate for the absence of Morrow. With Morrow's reduced presence in (but not departure from) the show, several ongoing storylines involving Fleischman were unable to be logically resolved.

Cast

Cynthia Geary, Rob Morrow, and Janine Turner at the 1993 Emmy Awards

Peg Phillips and Barry Corbin at the 1993 Emmy Awards

• Rob Morrow as Joel Fleischman, for most of the series. Joel is a Jewish physician and the proverbial fish out of water from New York City^[5], fresh out of medical school. He arrives in the remote Alaskan town of Cicely, contractually bound to practice for four years to repay a student loan from the state of Alaska.
• Barry Corbin as Maurice Minnifield, a successful businessman and celebrated former astronaut. Maurice owns the local radio station KBHR 570 AM and newspaper, and 15,000 acres (61 km²) of land he hopes to develop. Determined to make tiny Cicely the "Alaskan Riviera", Maurice arranges to bring Joel to the town.
• Janine Turner as Maggie O'Connell, a bush pilot, who develops a love-hate relationship with Joel. The sexual tension between the two and their opposed views on most subjects are sources of frequent conflict.
• John Cullum as Holling Vincoeur, the sexagenarian owner of the Brick - a bar and restaurant. He and Maurice are best friends, though their relationship is strained at one time by their love for the much younger Shelly Tambo.
• Cynthia Geary as Shelly Tambo. Shelly is a waitress at the Brick, where she lives with Holling. She was brought to Cicely by Maurice, who had hoped to marry her. The character was originally slated to be of Native American descent until Geary auditioned for the role.^[7]
• John Corbett as Chris Stevens, a philosophical ex-felon who works as the disc jockey at KBHR 570 AM. In between songs, Chris offers comments about events in Cicely and on more intellectual subjects.
• Darren E. Burrows as Ed Chigliak, a mild-mannered, half-native Alaskan foundling raised by local Tlingits. Ed does odd jobs for Maurice and works part-time at the local general store. He is a film buff and would-be movie director.
• Peg Phillips as Ruth-Anne Miller, the level-headed owner of the general store and 30-year resident of Cicely. A widow, Ruth-Anne lives alone until late in the series, when she becomes involved with Walt Kupfer, a fur-trapper and retired stockbroker.
• Elaine Miles as Marilyn Whirlwind, Joel's native Alaskan receptionist. Her few words and calm demeanor are a strong contrast with her employer's talkativeness and high-strung temperament.

In the show's last season, two new characters were introduced in an attempt to fill the void left by Morrow's departure:

• Paul Provenza as Phil Capra, recruited as town physician after Joel takes to the wilderness.
• Teri Polo as Michelle Schowdowski Capra, Phil's wife. She also works as a reporter for a newspaper owned by Maurice.

Major recurring characters include Adam Arkin as foodie and master chef Adam, and Valerie Mahaffey as his chronically hypochondriacal wife Eve; Mahaffey was the only actor from the series to win an Emmy Award.^[2]

Production

Although the town of Cicely is widely thought to be patterned after the real town of Talkeetna, Alaska,^[8][9] the main street of Cicely and the filming location was actually that of Roslyn, Washington. Northern Exposure II (The main production facility) was located in Redmond, Washington in what is now the headquarters of Genie Industries. It's behind a business park. The barbed wire fence around it still exists.

Prior to producing Northern Exposure, Joshua Brand and John Falsey created the popular television program St. Elsewhere. Series producer and writer David Chase went on to produce, amongst other things, The Sopranos.

According to The Northern Exposure Book, the moose in the opening titles was named Mort and was provided by Washington State University, where he was part of a captive herd. To film the opening sequence, the crew fenced off Roslyn, set him loose, and lured him around with food.^[10]

Episodes

Notable episodes in the series include the pilot (nominated for an Emmy for "Outstanding Writing"^[2]), the third season's last episode "Cicely" (which was recognized with a Peabody Award^[1], three Creative Arts Emmy Awards, and a Directors Guild of America Award), and the fifth season episode "I Feel the Earth Move" which featured the first same-sex marriage story arc on U.S. prime-time television.^[5]

Awards

Over the course of Northern Exposure's run, the series was nominated for over fifty Emmy Awards and multiple Golden Globe awards. In addition, Joshua Brand and John Falsey received two Peabody Awards, in 1991 and 1992, sharing the latter award with CBS and Finnegan-Pinchuk Company. During one of their thank you speeches, Brand and Falsey said that they appreciated the drama awards, "but it's a comedy."

The show's other awards include:

• Emmy Award (1992), Joshua Brand and John Falsey, Outstanding Drama Series.
• Emmy Award (1992), Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, Valerie Mahaffey.
• Emmy Award (1992), Andrew Schneider and Diane Frolov for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Drama Series for "Seoul Mates."
• Golden Globe (1993), Best Drama series.
• Golden Globe (1994), Best Drama series.
• Directors Guild Award (1993), Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Shows, "Cicely"

DVD releases

Universal Studios Home Entertainment has released all six seasons on DVD in Regions 1, 2 & 4. The Region 1 DVD releases have caused controversy among the show's fans, due to their high prices and for the changes to the soundtrack introduced in order to lower their costs.^[11] The release of season 1 contained the original music, but retailed for $60 due to the cost of music licensing. Subsequent seasons replaced some of the music resulting in a lower cost release. The first and second seasons were also re-released together in packaging that matches the third through sixth seasons.

Related television shows

Brand and Falsey also created St. Elsewhere and I'll Fly Away, the latter of which shared in one of the Peabody Awards given to Northern Exposure^[1]; Brand created Going to Extremes, a 1992 series—about medical students on a tropical island—lasting a single season.

Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, head writers of Northern Exposure, are the creators, executive producers, and writers of the CW's comedy-drama Easy Money, which premiered on October 5, 2008. The series has a similar fish-out-of-water feel.

Television series with premises similar to Northern Exposure include

• Due South, a drama-comedy series which in many ways attempted to reverse the central Northern Exposure dynamic by having a Canadian Mountie move to Chicago
• Everwood, a drama from the WB with a doctor moving from New York City to a mountain community full of quirky characters
• Corner Gas, a comedy series set in rural Saskatchewan, with a character moving there from Toronto to open a coffee shop
• Men in Trees, a 2006-2008 series also set in Alaska, with a lead character also transplanted there from New York

References and footnotes

External links

• Northern Exposure DVDs at Universal Studios
• Moosechick Notes, a fansite with full episode guides
• All about Northern Exposure in Spanish
• Northern Exposure at Allmovie
• Northern Exposure at the Internet Movie Database
• Northern Exposure at TV.com