Replies

"The Brick" ping

Ah, "Northern Exposure", otherwise known 'round these parts as "The Janine Turner Show"

She's a one of a kind, and a class act.

Thought you might like to see this.

A TV show, I really enjoyed!

That was definitely a weird show, and got weirder with time. The ice break show, the running of the bulls, the circumcism, the battle of two old men for the love of a young girl less than half their age......

It was avante garde for the time....but pretty tame by today's standards. A show worth watching and quite entertaining!

Did you ever visit Roslyn while you lived in Washington? I haven't seem much of WA, but - believe it or not - I've been to Roslyn. We were big fans of Northern Exposure at the time... even had our pic taken in front of "Roslyn's Cafe" (above). I remember driving pretty far out of our way just to see this place...LOL. It was a quirky, fairly interesting little town, I guess. Not like anything I had ever seen on the east coast...

Northern Exposure probably never would have gotten on the air if ABC hadn't made a big splash with David Lynch's critically acclaimed supernova Twin Peaks, which also was a "quirky" show set in a northwestern village surrounded by mountains and tall trees.

Of course, Exposure was more lighthearted than Peaks (heck, what wasn't?), but IMHO tried to capitalize on the "quirky" trend that Peaks began. Initially intrigued, I tired of Peaks' darkness, tawdriness, and meandering, meaningless plot divergences. When the backwards-talking dancing dwarf made his first appearance, I knew Peaks was doomed.

What annoyed me about both Peaks and Exposure was that both seemed to delight in presenting ostensibly "normal" people and making them out to be secret (or not so secret) freaks, forcing the question, "Who's really 'normal'?" But while Peaks just wallowed in weirdness, there were unmistakable political overtones present in Exposure.

I used to check out Exposure when there was a stinker of a game on Monday Night Football (which began at 6PM Pacific Time). But NE lost me as a casual viewer once and for all on May 18, 1992, when an episode aired explaining the origin of the town of Cicely. The synopsis, from a fan site:

While driving, Joel narrowly misses hitting an elderly man who he discovers is one of Cicely's first residents. In an ensuing conversation Ned (guest star Roberts Blossom) launches into an elaborate story about the creation of the town. As he speaks his words come to life on the screen. The downtrodden town was run by Mace (Barry Corbin), an outlaw who controlled the inhabi tants with an iron fist. It was when Mace left for a few months that Roslyn (guest star Jo Anderson), a powerful, robust [lesbian] woman, and [her lover] Cicely (guest star Yvonne Suhor), a vision of grace and beauty, came to the village. Immediately Roslyn made an effort to clean up the town. She stood up for her beliefs and demanded civil and mannerly behavior. Roslyn took Ned (Darren E. Burrows), who was then a young man who lived like an animal and begged for food, and Sally (Cynthia Geary), a shamed hooker, under her wing and instilled in them a new sense of self esteem.
Together Roslyn and Cicely brought culture, peace, and open mindedness to the small community. The once primitive town came to appreciate such things as dance and poetry. Roslyn had created a place where everyone was accepted without prejudice. Franz Kafka (Rob Morrow) even visited the artist's utopia to alleviate his writer's block. News that Mace was headed back to reclaim his town would jeopardize the now perfect society. Upon his entrance to town, Roslyn attempted to talk with him calmly on behalf of the townspeople. As she spoke with him, one of his gunmen fired. After that day, the town and Roslyn were never the same.

Roslyn was felled by the bullet fired, and at her funeral, attended by the whole town, Cicely made this statement:

Cicely: In this tiny corner of Alaska, the human spirit has triumphed. We hold in our hands, the most precious gift of all: Freedom. The freedom to express our art. Our love. The freedom to be who we want to be. We are not going to give that freedom away and no one shall take it from us!

The plot synopsis makes the show seem more innocuous then was the more-radical final product. In an early scene, Roslyn walks into a typical wild west saloon and starts singing. When a rowdy drunk starts harassing and threatening her, she coldcocks him, lays him out, and asks the other men in the joint to sing with her. Stunned and shaking with fear, they all comply. This is the beginning of Cicely's Camelotish moment as "Paris of the West," or, as the fan wrote on her site, "the now perfect society."

But wait! There's more. The fan site also notes that in the Northern Exposure Production Bible -- which seems to be a reference guide for screenwriters regarding the show's concept, characters, and history -- there is this little note about the "Cicely" episode: "Roslyn & Cicely's salon opened May 1st: important holiday in matriarchal pagan societies."

So why would I ever have subjected myself to this looney liberal show? Two words: Janine Turner. But I know better now; Helen of Troy couldn't lure me to a show like, for example, Will & Grace.

Little slice of local lore fer ya... :-)

Now, I don't suppose that this couple's dream of retirement in owning this famous little bar was crushed by the recent anti-smoking law. Naw. Couldn't be.