Well before the off-beat and quirky Pushing Daisies aired its first episode, the comparably off-beat and quirky Northern Exposure pulled me into the eccentric world of Cicely, Alaska. The show's charmingly idiosyncratic characters and often-time bizarre episodes quickly endeared themselves to me, and before long I found myself tuning into the series regularly. On a side note, I might be detecting a pattern among my most cherished television shows emerging here, one that I had not previously considered. Along with Pushing Daisies and Northern Exposure, at least one other television series TBA in my Countdown to 40 shares these exact descriptors, too. A couple notable favorites not on the countdown fit the same mold as well, like Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and 30 Rock. Things that make you go hmmmm.
Anyway, back to the show at hand. For those of you unfamiliar with the wonder and awesomeness that is Northern Exposure, the 1990-1995 series centers on Dr. Joel Fleischman, who, upon graduation from medical school in New York City, gets placed as the resident doctor for a tiny Alaskan town. Provided he successfully fulfills his agreement to the town of Cicely, his medical degree will be paid for. Of course, Joel finds the transition rather difficult, and he struggles adjusting to his new home, remote as it is, and his new neighbors, weird as they are. Where can he find a bagel? How do people get into town? How do they get out? None of the backward, uneducated locals could possibly understand his worldly, cosmopolitan, and highly-educated perspective or refined tastes. (Sounds prescient considering our current political atmosphere and the increasingly bitter conflict between urban and rural America, doesn't it?) The truly peculiar townspeople, for the most part, graciously accept Joel into their fold, despite the Empire State Building-sized chip on his shoulder and his abrasively stereotypical New York personality. Their genuine concern for the doctor's well-being coupled with their immense pride in their hometown eventually breaks Joel's guard down, and Cicely becomes his home, too. During the process, some truly bizarre episodes take place--ones that have stuck with me for the past 20 years. There's one in which the local DJ, Chris Stevens (played by John Corbett), hoists a grand piano several stories into the air with a crane, only to drop it crashing to the ground. The reason? Sheer curiosity for what the experience would be like. Other episodes, or maybe one of the same--memory does come and go these days, chronicle life in Cicely during the summer and winter solstices, when the town experiences 24 hours of sunlight or darkness. The impact those days have on the show's characters only made them more strange and therefore more endearing. Apart from satisfying my recently uncovered penchant for off-beat, quirky television series, Northern Exposure shares a common trait with my connection to Entertainment Weekly. As I reflected in my first Countdown to 40 post, I felt a sense of isolation after moving from suburban Saint Paul to rural Minnesota. Entertainment Weekly certainly helped alleviate that feeling, and so did Northern Exposure in its own way. Sure, no matter how rural and disconnected my life seemed to be in west-central Minnesota, it definitely was not as rural and disconnected as Cicely, Alaska. On some level, though, I think I connected to Joel's experience as a stranger in a strange new land among strange new people. That the decision to relocate was not his own made the similarity to my situation all the more striking. At the same time, I, too, eventually grew to love my new home, my new surroundings, and my new friends, particularly once I started letting my own guard down and opening myself up to the wonderful people and space around me. Reduced to a base level comparison, we were the same, Joel and I. When I started the process of writing about Northern Exposure, I generally knew the direction it was heading. One thing I failed to see coming at the outset was identifying a pattern of television show qualities I tend to gravitate towards. Surprisingly, two other revelations surfaced as I continued to write, both having to do with the character played by John Corbett. First, most if not all of the scenes and episodes I remember the most feature Corbett's Chris Stevens in a prominent storyline. I never spent much time thinking about that before this project. I primarily thought the show's radio DJ simply epitomized what it meant to be cool. But now I am pretty sure my fascination with Chris Stevens amounted to one of my first adolescent crushes. Second, my crush on the DJ character may have also inspired me to create my own DJ alter-ego, which I talk about in more detail on the Hot 101 page. Of course my fascination with Top 40 programs undoubtedly played a role in that, too, but I don't think it a coincidence that I initiated my Top 40 around the same time I started watching Northern Exposure. Consider my mind blown.
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I am a self-proclaimed pop culture geek and list enthusiast who is celebrating the big four-zero by counting down the most important, influential, and favorite music, movies, television shows, books, and video games of my life so far. Categories
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