Chicago Hope

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Chicago Hope was a popular CBS drama series created by David E. Kelley that ran from September 18, 1994 to May 4, 2000. It took place in a fictional private hospital, Chicago Hope.

The show starred Mandy Patinkin as Dr. Jeffrey Geiger, a hot shot surgeon with emotional problems stemming from the psychiatric condition of his wife, played by Kim Greist. Adam Arkin played Patinkin's colleague and best friend and Peter MacNicol and Hector Elizondo featured as 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 Patinkin for the chief of surgery position.

The pilot episode of Chicago Hope was broadcast the day before NBC's ER, however, after that first week the two shows went head-to-head in primetime, Thursday night at 10pm. Despite the critical acclaim that Chicago Hope received, ER's first season proved a ratings winner and in 1995 Chicago Hope was moved to Monday nights at 10pm.

The show stayed in that slot and performed well, with ratings peaking at 11.9 and 20% share, however in the second season Kelley and Patinkin decided the leave the show and Chicago Hope began its slow descent to cancellation. In 1999 both Kelley and Patinkin returned with a revamped cast including the additions of Barbara Hershey and Lauren Holly and the loss of 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, though, proved too daunting of a task, and the show was cancelled in May 2000.

In the UK, seasons 1 and 2, originally aired on BBC One. More recently all seasons of the show have been shown on ITV3.

In the USA episodes air on The Discovery Health Channel but the last episodes of season 6 and the first episodes of season one do not usually air

Contents

[edit] Cast

[edit] Awards

Over its six seasons Chicago Hope was nominated for many accolades and won more than a few, including seven Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe.

[edit] 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
  • William Freesh

for the episode Brain Salad Surgery

[edit] Trivia

  • Chicago Hope was the first show on network television (with the exception of documentaries) to feature the word "shit" without bleeping it. Mark Harmon had the "honor" to use the word in an appropriate context. Very little negative publicity resulted.
  • The series also broke another network television taboo by showing a teenager's breast after her character undergoes a reconstructive surgery.
  • The name of the character that Stacy Edwards portrayed, Lisa Catera, is based on the phrase from the Cadillac commercials, "Lease a Catera".

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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