Northern Exposure is an American comedy-drama television series about the eccentric residents of a fictional small town in Alaska, that ran on CBS from July 12, 1990, to July 26, 1995, with a total of 110 episodes. It received 57 award nominations during its six-season run and won 27, including the 1992 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series, two additional Primetime Emmy Awards, four Creative Arts Emmy Awards, and two Golden Globes. In the show Rob Morrow played New York City native Joel Fleischman, a recently graduated physician who is obligated to practice in Anchorage, Alaska, for several years to repay the state of Alaska for underwriting his medical education. Much to his chagrin, he is assigned to the much smaller and remote town of Cicely, which is in need of a general practitioner. Originally the show focused on Fleischman's fish-out-of-water experiences in rural Alaska but as it progressed, it became more of an ensemble show, focusing on various other Cicely residents.

History

The series was created by Joshua Brand and John Falsey, who also created the award-winning shows St. Elsewhere and I'll Fly Away. It started as a mid-season replacement summer series on CBS in 1990 with eight episodes. It returned for seven more episodes in spring 1991, then became a regular part of the network's schedule in 1991–92. It ranked among the top 10 viewed by 18- to 49-year-olds, and was part of the network's 1992–93 and 1993–94 schedules. In 1994, writer Sandy Veith won a jury trial against Universal, alleging that the series was based on his idea yet he received no credit or compensation. Veith won $10 million in damages and legal fees on appeal three years later. His suit was against the studio, not Brand and Falsey. The Los Angeles Times reported that jurors seemed to believe the studio came to Brand and Falsey with the basic concept for the show rather than that they knowingly stole Veith's idea. Some Universal executives had worked with Veith and Brand and Falsey. Veith's script was about an Italian-American doctor who moves to a small town in the South. In 1994, the same year that the lawsuit was filed, Brand and Falsey resigned. David Chase was brought in to serve as executive producer. He later went on to say that he took the job purely for the money, stating that he disliked the premise of the show; Brand cited Chase as having run the show into the ground. In January 1995 the show moved from Monday to Wednesday, and in May 1995 there was a gap during sweeps when CBS broadcast other programming. At one point, Barry Corbin wrote an open letter to TV critics that called the show "an understandably weakened show". On May 24, 1995, CBS announced the cancelation of the show, which had its final episode shown on July 26. "The show had a lot of life in it, and the move (Wednesday at 10pm) killed it," said executive producer Andrew Schneider. "This piddling out is sad." Morrow and his representatives spent much of seasons 4 and 5 lobbying for an improved contract, and intermittently threatened to leave the show. The producers responded by reducing Fleischman's role in the storylines, and introducing characters such as Mike Monroe (season 4) and Dr. Phil Capra (season 6) to partially compensate for the absence of Morrow, whose last appearance came midway through the show's final season.

Cast and characters

In the show's last season, two new characters were introduced to fill the void left by Morrow's departure: Major recurring characters include:

Production

Cicely is widely thought to be based on Talkeetna, Alaska. Cicely is described throughout the series as being part of the "Alaskan Riviera." In Season 6, Episode 15, Joel mails a post card to Maggie from Manhattan, and the zip code of Cicely is shown to be 99729, which is located north of Talkeetna and east of Denali National Park, and includes the town of Cantwell. However, most filming locations were in Roslyn, Washington. "Northern Exposure II" (the main production facility) was in Redmond, Washington, in what is now the headquarters of Genie Industries, behind a business park. According to The Northern Exposure Book, the moose in the opening titles was named Mort and was provided by Washington State University, where he was part of a captive herd. To film the opening sequence, the crew fenced off Roslyn, set Mort loose, and lured him around with food.

Episodes

Notable episodes in the series include the pilot (nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Writing ), the third season's last episode, "Cicely" (which won a Peabody Award, three Creative Arts Emmy Awards, and a Directors Guild of America Award), and the fifth-season episode "I Feel the Earth Move", which featured the second same-sex marriage story arc on U.S. prime-time television. (Fox's Roc aired the first U.S. prime-time television episode depicting a same-sex marriage, "Can't Help Loving That Man", on October 20, 1991.)

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the first season of Northern Exposure has a score of 100% based on six reviews, with an average rating of 7.0/10. On Metacritic, which uses a weighted score, the first season is rated 80 based on seven reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews," while the second season has an 83 based on nine, indicating "universal acclaim". Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker gave the first episode a B+, writing that the show “may well prove to be summer television’s most likably eccentric series”.

Ratings

Accolades

Emmy Awards

The cast and crew won seven Emmy Awards out of 39 nominations:

Golden Globe Awards

The series won two Golden Globe awards for Best Drama series, in 1992 and 1993. In addition, Morrow and Turner were each nominated three times consecutively from 1992 to 1994 for Best Actor and Actress, while Corbett was nominated in 1993 for his supporting role.

Peabody Awards

The series won a pair of consecutive Peabody Awards: in 1991–92 for the show's "depict[ion] in a comedic and often poetic way, [of] the cultural clash between a transplanted New York City doctor and the townspeople of fictional Cicely, Alaska" and its stories of "people of different backgrounds and experiences" clashing but who ultimately "strive to accept their differences and co-exist".

Additional awards and nominations

Soundtracks

Home media

DVD releases

Universal Studios Home Entertainment has released all six seasons on DVD in Regions 1, 2 and 4. The Region 1 DVD releases have caused controversy among the show's fans due to their high prices and the changes to the soundtrack introduced in order to lower their costs. The release of Season 1 contained the original music, but retailed for $60 due to the cost of music licensing. Subsequent seasons replaced most of the music with generic elevator-style music, resulting in a lower-cost release. The first and second seasons were also rereleased together in packaging that matches the third through sixth seasons. On July 21, 2020, Northern Exposure was rereleased by Shout! Factory, containing all 110 episodes but not with all original music. The R2 editions released in Germany on DVD contain all the original music.

Blu-ray releases

On March 19, 2018, Fabulous Films released the entire series on Blu-ray in the United Kingdom containing all original music.

Streaming

As of January 2024, all six seasons of the series are now available on Amazon Prime Video with the majority of its original soundtrack.

Potential revival

In 2016, Darren Burrows and his production company, Film Farms, held a crowdfunding campaign to fund a development project with the goal of creating more episodes. The working title for this project is "Northern Exposure: Home Again". Despite not meeting the original $100,000 goal, Burrows decided to continue with the project. On June 17, 2016, Film Farms announced that writer David Assael had been hired to write for the project. He previously wrote several episodes, including "Russian Flu," "Spring Break," and "It Happened in Juneau," among others. The revival was originally envisioned as a two-hour "visit to Cicely," but a ten-episode series was reportedly being pitched to various network, cable, and streaming venues. On November 20, 2018, it was reported that a revival series was in the early stages of development at CBS, with Brand, Falsey, and Morrow executive producing and Morrow again playing Fleischman. Corbett was named as producer but his appearance as a performer was not confirmed. Falsey died in January 2019, and on May 19, 2019, Josef Adalian, an editor for the New York City-based magazine Vulture, tweeted that CBS had canceled development work on the series. Adalian subsequently tweeted that the rights holder, Universal Studios, could pitch the revival elsewhere, but it was unclear whether Universal was planning to move the project to another outlet. Morrow, who was busy with other commitments, found out about Falsey's death on Twitter. On November 15, 2019, Morrow revealed in an interview on radio station WGN 720AM in Chicago that he and Brand were continuing revival efforts despite Falsey's death and CBS's decision.

References and footnotes