#emergencytopfive

A huge thanks to all of you who participated in the Emergency! Top Five Challenge the past few months. I had a lot of fun taking a closer look at some of our favorite episodes, and I hope you did too. I thought I would share some final thoughts.

Looking back at the episodes we covered, it’s clear that there are many themes running through Emergency! that really connect with fans: friendship, perseverance, teamwork, and a healthy dose of humor.

The show excelled at storytelling that not only highlighted compelling accounts of work in emergency medicine and the fire service, but also underscored universal emotions we can all connect with.

The episodes generally have a formula: rescues, hospital drama, firehouse hijinks, repeat as time allows. It’ s a formula that works, taking us through the peaks and valleys of drama and comedy, and always ending with on a positive note. The core characters will remain intact. Although they may bicker, they will always have each other’s backs, and they can trust each other with their lives. They may have self-doubt and personal challenges, but they will always persevere, and overcome those challenges with the support of their colleagues.  

The show successfully walked a line between emotion and action. It was always rooted in telling compelling stories about fire fighting, paramedics, and emergency medicine. The authenticity of these stories and how they were portrayed, kept this series grounded, and still watchable after all these years, and it’s why we still have such a broad fanbase that includes real firefighters and paramedics. But the show is much more than a show about the paramedic program in 1970s Los Angeles County. It’s about relationships. Relationships that we can all connect with, and characters that we cheer on through their professional and personal struggles.

For me, that’s what this fandom is about too: relationships. Although I started my Tumblr page as a place where I thought it would be fun to post some silly memes or write about shows that no one was interested in talking to me about in real life, it’s become so much more. It’s truly been a pleasure connecting with other fans, and getting to know many of you.

For many of us, the way we watch Emergency! will be changing in 2017, since it will be disappearing from Netflix and MeTV. We may have fewer (and less desirable) options, but we will still have some options. I hope that we can continue the momentum of a collegial fandom here on Tumblr. The discourse with other fans and the community of the fandom is what makes this fun for me to continue posting here. I enjoy seeing what you all create and I hope we can envision another collaborative type project for 2017.

The Props Department was feeling a little lazy. 

“Roy, I’m a better judge of your ability than you are.  I don’t think luck had anything to do with it.”

“A certain amount of fear is healthy.  Too much of it and you are crippled.”

“Roy, there are times in emergency medicine where you just have to move with the full knowledge you may not be right.”

“You are asking yourself if you are fallible. . . Well, I’m not infallible. Nobody on that floor is. So why should you be?”

“Is there anybody here right now that can do the job better than I can? . . . If the answer is no, you’d better pick up the ball and run with it, for the sake of the patient.”

Good morning Emergency! fans. Today is the last day of the Emergency! Top Five challenge. If you've lost track, we are posting about “Problem.”

“Doctor, you are ten miles out of line.”

This is one of mom’s favorite episodes, and I’m jumping in to say that she loves this scene so much.

In the 1970s, as mom recalls it, women were meant to be assistants, whether that be nurses, secretaries, or anything similar. And especially in medicine, nurses were meant to be assistants. You give the doctor what he wants, do what he says, and be under control.

Now, I’m sure the fandom can agree how much of a badass Dixie is. Doctor Sullivan, as he said in the episode, has just “read things” about the paramedic program. In a lot of ways, he’s like Brackett in the pilot episode. He tells Roy off, who, as we see, deeply affects him. Johnny expresses this to Dixie, and Dixie, having had enough, tells him off. In such a way that you can feel the mental slap in the face she gives to Sullivan through the screen.