Every Thursday at 9pm I Watch ER…and Every Thursday at 10pm I Wonder Why

A friend of mine who’s been out of the ER loop lately asked for a rundown, so I sent her my recap of this season so far. I decided to reprint it here (it turned into a bit of a tome) and as you can probably tell from my tone of voice, I’m thinking the program has never sucked more…

Susan is gone. Kerry is rarely around. To make up for her absence and the loss of the one-armed helicopter-killed doc, they have two new characters who fill the role of bitchy superior everyone loves to hate. Kristen Johnston is the new nurse manager. She’s a real bitch; knows her shit, but has zero people skills, pissing off doctors and nurses left and right.

Last week she (sort-of) promoted Sam to a management track and immediately told her to fire Helay, the nurse who’s unrecognizable since she lost all that weight. Predictably, it went really poorly and Sam felt like crap. Boo frickin hoo.

She and Luca are on the outs since he was all about having a family and she was all “I am NOT having another kid!” (Alright already, enough!) Their relationship was so boring and one-note, and for a while it seemed like every episode revolved around their sour why-exactly-does-he-like-her-anyway?? relationship. Sam’s kid went missing for an entire excruciating episode, when he took off to find his dad, and Sam got all hysterical, dragging Luca on a cross-country journey that culminated in her yelling at him for the umpteenth time. That Sam, she’s such a barrel of laughs. Things are looking up now that she dumped him and tonight’s episode alludes to Luca and Abby hooking up (again.) I guess because Abby’s pretty much slept with every guy in her department above the rank of intern and has to start the circuit again.

Abby is still my favorite character on the show right now. The cute intern she was dating last season mysteriously left. Perhaps he fell into the same hole that Susan did, but anyway, he’s in another city doing an internship. Whatever. Abby’s boyfriend, we hardly knew ya. She’s cooking along as a second year, and thankfully, so far, there’s no sign of Sally Field popping up for another Emmy-shilling cameo as her mother.

The surgical consult doc Dr. Dubenko has a thing for Abby, which was kinda cute, until they had him get prostate cancer and proposition her as a “last time I’ll ever be able to get it up on my own” date. How romantic! She turned him down and got a professional hooker for him as a consolation prize. Then, last week, he was home recovering from surgery, so they had a robot consult doc with his head on a TV screen second-guessing ER traumas. (Now, can you see how this show is getting stupider and stupider, grasping for storylines?)

Oh, back to the other “bitchy” character–John Leguizamo new chief resident Dr. Clemente. He’s not so much bitchy as he is, shall we say, eccentric. Okay, we shall. Crazy John entered the ER as a patient to test the staff, complaining of all sorts of weird stuff (hi-larious) and last week, for some unexplained reason, he snuck a baby chimp into the ER and had Abby and Neela working on it. There was a touching little deathbed scene with mama chimp that set a new low for County General. Anyway, Leguizamo’s character is obviously the new ER wild card–Watch out, Anything can happen when he’s around!

In another disgusting storyline, Neela’s roommate, the band player/doctor, discovered his groupie girlfriend was 16…and gave him an STD! (Ho no!!) Neela’s still pretty much functioning as Abby’s sidekick, which is getting old fast. Pratt’s ongoing (read, borrrrrring) story line concerns the recent discovery of his father (Emmy attempter Danny Glover) who left Pratt and his mother when he was a kid. Pratt’s all chip-on-his-shoulder resentful, the father’s all let’s-put-it-behind-us-and-get-together, and his half-brother is all, “Don’t you like me? How ’bout I show up in a couple of episodes needing a kidney donation?” (I’m guessing, but something trite like this is just around the corner, mark my words.)

Let’s see, who’ve I forgotten? Oh, the smarmy resident who doesn’t know jack is still in charge and he’s still an idiot. It’s amazing he hasn’t killed anyone before now. Jerry got struck by lightning a few episodes ago (ho, no he di’int!), and John Stamos (It’s a full house now!) starts a guest stint tonight. They’re gearing up for the yearly BIG EPISODE when a train/plane/boat/car/asteroid hits the hospital and all hell breaks loose.

Must see TV!?!?!?! Hmmmm.