Chicago Hope
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Chicago Hope | |
---|---|
Genre | Medical Drama Serial Drama |
Created by | David E. Kelley |
Written by | David E. Kelley David Amann and more... |
Starring | Mandy Patinkin Héctor Elizondo Vondie Curtis-Hall Barbara Hershey Christine Lahti Peter Berg Mark Harmon Thomas Gibson Rocky Carroll Adam Arkin Jayne Brook E. G. Marshall |
Opening theme | Theme from Chicago Hope |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 6 |
No. of episodes | 141 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producers | Henry Bromwell Bill D'Elia David E. Kelley John Tinker |
Production locations | Los Angeles, CA Chicago, IL |
Cinematography | James R. Bagdonas |
Running time | approx. 42–44 minutes |
Production companies | 20th Century Fox Television David E. Kelley Productions |
Original release | |
Network | CBS |
Release | September 28, 1994 May 4, 2000 | –
Related | |
Picket Fences |
Chicago Hope is an American medical drama series created by David E. Kelley that ran from September 18, 1994 to May 5, 2000. It takes place in a fictional private charity hospital.
Premise
The show stars Mandy Patinkin as Dr. Jeffrey Geiger, a hot shot surgeon with emotional issues stemming from the psychiatric condition of his wife (Kim Greist) who drowned their infant son. Adam Arkin plays Patinkin's colleague and best friend. Peter MacNicol and Hector Elizondo feature as the house counsel and director of medicine, respectively. Christine Lahti joined in the second season as a talented cardiac surgeon with a feminist chip on her shoulder who vies with Geiger for the chief of surgery position.
Cast
- Dr. Jeffrey Geiger (Mandy Patinkin, seasons 1 – 2, 6)
- Dr. Aaron Shutt (Adam Arkin)
- Alan Birch (Peter MacNicol, seasons 1 – 2)
- Dr. Phillip Watters (Hector Elizondo)
- Dr. Kate Austin (Christine Lahti, seasons 2 – 5)
- Dr. Jack McNeil (Mark Harmon, seasons 3 – 6)
- Dr. Billy Kronk (Peter Berg, seasons 1 – 5)
- Dr. Keith Wilkes (Rocky Carroll, seasons 3 – 6)
- Dr. Diane Grad (Jayne Brook), seasons 1 – 5)
- Dr. Dennis Hancock (Vondie Curtis-Hall, seasons 1 – 5)
- Dr. Danny Nyland (Thomas Gibson, seasons 1 – 3)
- Dr. Lisa Catera (Stacy Edwards), seasons 4 – 5)
- Dr. Robert Yeats (Eric Stoltz), season 5)
- Dr. Francesca Alberghetti (Barbara Hershey, season 6)
- Dr. Gina Simon (Carla Gugino), season 6)
- Dr. Jeremy Hanlon (Lauren Holly, season 6)
- Dr. John Sutton (Jamey Sheridan, season 2)
- Dr. Arthur Thurmond (E.G. Marshall, season 1)
- Angela Giandamenicio (Roma Maffia, season 1)
- Nurse Camille Shutt (Roxanne Hart, seasons 1 – 2)
Reception
The pilot episode of Chicago Hope was broadcast the day before NBC's ER in a special Sunday 8pm slot. After the first week, however, the two Chicago-based hospital dramas went 'head to head' in their primetime Thursday night slot. ER was the victor: its first season proved a ratings winner. Despite receiving critical acclaim, Chicago Hope was shuffled to Thursdays, and ultimately Monday nights in 1995 in a bid for higher ratings, while ER stayed in the same time slot.
The show stayed in that slot and performed well with ratings peaking at 11.9 and 20 shares. In the second season, however, Kelley and Patinkin decided to leave the show and Chicago Hope began its slow march toward cancellation. The show was moved to Wednesdays at 10pm in 1997 to make room for the Steven Bochco drama, Brooklyn South, on Mondays. In 1999, both Kelley and Patinkin returned with a revamped cast including newcomers Barbara Hershey and Lauren Holly but excluding Lahti, Peter Berg, Jayne Brook, Vondie Curtis-Hall, and Stacy Edwards. They also moved the show back to Thursday nights against NBC's Frasier and ABC's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire; however, this proved too daunting a task, and the show was canceled in May 2000.
Nielsen ratings
Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of Chicago Hope.
Note: Each U.S. network television season starts in late September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps.
Season | Timeslot° | Season premiere | Season finale | TV season | Ranking | Viewers (in millions) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st | Thursday 10:00 PM | September 18, 1994 | May 22, 1995 | 1994–1995 | #29 | 11.161[1] |
2nd | Monday 10:00 PM | September 18, 1995 | May 20, 1996 | 1995–1996 | #24 | 11.412[2] |
3rd | Monday 10:00 PM | September 16, 1996 | May 19, 1997 | 1996–1997 | #30 | 10.185[3] |
4th | Wednesday 10:00 PM | October 1, 1997 | May 13, 1998 | 1997–1998 | #39 | 8.9 |
5th | Wednesday 10:00 PM | September 30, 1998 | May 19, 1999 | 1998–1999 | #73 | 9.9 |
6th | Thursday 9:00 PM | September 23, 1999 | May 4, 2000 | 1999–2000 | TBA | TBA |
°Times listed are in ET
Production
With the exception of some infrequent on-location scenes, the vast majority of Chicago Hope was filmed on sound stages at the studios of Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation located in the Century City area of Los Angeles.
Awards
Over its six seasons Chicago Hope was nominated for many accolades and won several, including seven Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe.
Emmy awards
Year | Award | Recipient |
---|---|---|
1995 | Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series | Mandy Patinkin |
1995 | Outstanding Individual Achievement in Cinematography for a Series | Tim Suhrstedt for the episode "Over The Rainbow" |
1996 | Outstanding Individual Achievement in Casting for a Series | Debi Manwiller |
1996 | Outstanding Individual Achievement in Directing for a Drama Series | Jeremy Kagan for the episode "Leave Of Absence" |
1997 | Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series | Hector Elizondo |
1998 | Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series | Christine Lahti |
1998 | Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Drama Series | Russell C. Fager, R. Russell Smith, and William Freesh for the episode "Brain Salad Surgery" |
Episodes
Chicago Hope has aired for six straight seasons and 141 episodes.
Crossovers
- Fyvush Finkel and Kathy Baker appeared as their Picket Fences characters in the first season. Likewise, Mandy Patinkin and Hector Elizondo brought their Chicago Hope characters to Picket Fences that year. Adam Arkin had previously appeared on that program as a lawyer.
- Mandy Patinkin appears in an uncredited role as Geiger in a 1994 episode of Homicide: Life on the Street. Hope producer John Tinker shot this footage as a favor to his St. Elsewhere colleague Tom Fontana.
Firsts
- The series broke a network television taboo by showing a teenager's breast after her character undergoes a reconstructive surgery. This was generally seen as relevant to the subject matter and went relatively uncriticized.[citation needed]
- On November 18, 1999, Chicago Hope became the first regular series episode to be broadcast in HDTV.[4] The episode was entitled, "The Other Cheek".
- Also, the series was the first to use the word "shit" on network television. It was spoken by Mark Harmon's character after a meeting, in which he says "shit happens".[citation needed]
International airings
In the UK, seasons 1 and 2 originally aired on BBC One. More recently, all seasons of the show have been shown on ITV3. Starting on September 3, 2007, it began airing on Zone Romantica in the UK and Ireland.
In popular culture
- In the South Park episode "The Brown Noise," Kyle Broflowski asks Eric Cartman if he knows what he is thinking, to which Eric Cartman replies "that they should bring back Chicago Hope for another season?"
- The show also appears once on Ally McBeal when Ling Woo turns on the television and says "Oooh! Chicago Hope" after a failed attempt at sexual intercourse with Richard Fish.
- In the Early Edition episode "The Choice" as Gary picks up a hurt girl a bystander tells him not to and asks "Don't you ever watch Chicago Hope?" The girl in the episode was played by Mae Whitman.
References
External links
- Wikipedia articles needing copy edit from September 2008
- 1994 television series debuts
- 2000 American television series endings
- 1990s American television series
- 2000s American television series
- American drama television series
- CBS network shows
- English-language television series
- Fictional hospitals
- Medical television series
- Television series by Fox Television Studios
- Television shows set in Chicago, Illinois