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ER is a fast-paced television show created by Michael Crichton to highlight life in hospital emergency rooms. The first season of the episode introduces all of the characters and carries them through some of the initial plots, including the loss of Dr. Benton's (Eriq La Salle) mother and Nurse Hathaway's aborted marriage (Julianna Margulies). ***

The episode is pretty interesting to watch, but it grows old fast. I'm sure the writers have tried their best to come up with new conditions and new situations in order for the staff to have to do different things, but because the audience really doesn't know what 99% of the disorders are, it probably doesn't matter. All they see is someone come in on a gurney, get a lot of attention, see a lot of blood, and watch the doctors, residents, and nurses fight about everything. ***

Which leads to the characters and the deeper running story lines. After watching just a couple of episodes the viewer is inevitably going to have to look for something more than just the action of an emergency room to keep their attention. The show tries to grab that attention by creating unique characters whose lives pretty much revolve around their time in the ER. Of course there is also the periodic integration of outside lives with life inside the ER, but unless you have watched the show from the very beginning, sometimes its hard to know what is really going on with the characters. This DVD does do a little to help with that by giving brief bios on each of the characters (not the actors), but I don't think the very brief bios really get to the heart of who these people are supposed to be. ***

I do have to admit that the acting isn't terrible, but neither is it universally stellar. Strangely I find myself more impressed by the male actors of the show (Noah Wyle - Dr. John Carter; Anthony Edwards - Dr. Mark Greene; George Clooney - Dr. Doug Ross; Eriq La Salle - Dr. Peter Benton) than with the female actors (Laura Innes - Dr. Kerry Weaver; Julianna Margulies - Nurse Carol Hathaway). For the most part the male actors, though not absolute stand outs, are pretty good and fairly consistent. The female actors, however, just seem to rub me the wrong way and aren't nearly as convincing. ***

When the show originally came out I wasn't all that interested. I was still in high school and had better things to do. Occasionally I would watch a few minutes of an episode here or there if I could find nothing else to watch during my brief interludes with the electronic babysitter, but generally I would watch pretty much anything but ER. From the episodes that I've seen I'm amazed that people that follow the show haven't shown higher rates of suicide than people watching sitcoms (maybe they have, someone should do a study). The show is really rather depressing. Nothing ever seems to go right, people die all of the time, and even the main characters periodically attempt suicide and are always upset with one another or about something. I don't know how anyone can really stick to this show for this reason alone. ***

So, what we have is a rather repetitive TV show with okay actors that tries to keep the viewers attention by developing underlying story lines for each of the characters but in order to understand the story lines you have to see every single episode. *** Assuming that you have followed the series, you will likely find this box set to be a great collection. It has a lot of extras that are fairly well done, including a number of outtakes, interviews, and a lot of behind the scenes information. ***

Overall, though I'm sure this series has been really interesting to some, unless you follow it closely I think the drama can quickly pass you by. Initial exposure to ER can be pretty shocking, with all of the blood, gore, and sadness that accompanies the quite regular deaths, but once you've seen one person die from myocardio-something or other you've seen about all there is to see. I'm sure die-hard fans of ER will love this box set. But having never been sucked in by the depressing stories that anchor the show, I can't really say that I loved it.

The image and sound quality are both very good. In the behind the scenes featurette they reveal that much of the footage is shot using a steady cam. Nevertheless, the footage is surprisingly good (not that the quality would be bad, but some of the shots might). As for the digital transfer, I didn't notice any compression artifacts and the picture is clear and crisp throughout. ***

The sound quality is pretty good. This isn't really an episode that requires very detailed sound, so I wasn't really sure if I was missing anything or if it just wasn't there. Nevertheless, the sound that is there is clear. --

The "Behind the Curtains" featurette is probably the best special feature in this set. It takes you behind the scenes and gives you a very long and detailed look at the production process along with numerous interviews with actors and production staff. There is a lot of very good information in this featurette and it is very well done. *

The featurette "On the Cutting Edge: Medical Realism on the ER" is also pretty interesting. It talks about how the writers do their very best to make sure that what the actors are saying is legitimate. They also talk about where they get their ideas for the show, which are generally fairly unique. ***

The featurette "Post Operative Procedures: Post Production in the ER" is a pretty interesting featurette. It focuses on the editing and sound mixing aspects of the TV show. As it is explained in the featurette, this appears to be a very demanding element of the production process. There is a new score for each episode and the editing is often pushed for time as shooting may finish just days before the episode is to air. I found this featurette to be very useful. ***

The outtakes and additional scenes were also pretty good. Some of the outtakes were pretty funny, but most were just flubbed lines. Not having followed the entire series, I wasn't too impressed by the additional scenes, but they were kind of interesting to watch. **

Perhaps the most comprehensive extra feature, however, is "The First Year Intern Handbook". It includes all sorts of information, including biographical information on each of the main characters and many of the patients and temporary characters in the episodes. It also includes a layout of the hospital with information on each room and tons of other information. It is actually probably one of the best interactive features I have seen when it comes to additional information and layout of any DVD disc set. ***

Overall, the extras on this DVD set are pretty comprehensive. Most are worth your time to watch and are useful additions to the series.