Anyway I just needed to ER post cause the only other person I know who has seen ER is my clinical professor and I respect her too much to tell her this.

AND FOR ONE MORE THING DOUG ROSS ??? ER is insane because all this insanity is happening, very serious things are happening, and BAM there’s George Clooney and I don’t think anyone has ever been more bashful and beautiful. I want to kiss his forehead and give him one BIG hug. Can’t I have that?

I would like to note that John Carter is not perfect but no one is, that’s just what I want people to know. Peter Benton is not perfect but no one is. I just want them to LEARN FROM THEIR MISTAKES and that seems an impossible request. The obviousness. The longevity of sincerity. It’s right there.

John Carter has life outside of this, though it’s all still important to him. Peter needs to know there’s life outside of this, needs it sincerely and desperately. He needs the intrusion of an intruder. And John Carter is an intruder.

Peter Benton has been broken down time and time again by John Carters eternal optimism and people skills — John knew his mother, respects him, follows him, challenges him. Peter, yes, is his boss, but so is Keaton. There is precedent for the normality of this.

I can solve the Peter Benton Problem and the John Carter Perfection Disseminated By Love Interests. By having them fall in love with each other. I’m serious.

I’m gonna say it. I have to say it. Someone wake up and hear me say it.

I hate how they’ve treated the relationships between central characters. Leaning into violence of the environment but also clinging to the charm of personhood without giving many of the characters a chance at it. That isn’t great writing. That’s missing the grand opportunity.

John Carter is famously John Carter. Golden retriever, makes mistakes and learns from them, has girlfriends that are sometimes flat affects, just so there’s a person in his life — and when they are solid and real, when they no longer become his love interest, they don’t exist. I don’t hate Carter.

I’m at season 3 episode 9. For an entire season I see one person who reaches out and touches Benton. One person. Can you guess?

They include Kerri when she’s making their life management hell. They accept Mark when he’s being the world’s largest butt crack. But Peter Benton? Dr Benton, who is whip smart, emotionally unavailable, desperate to be loved? Oh no. Can’t see that through the glass.

He doesn’t reach out. They don’t include him. He’s surgical, yes, but he’s apart of the team. There’s no begrudgingly lovely making fun, there’s no acknowledgment of his turn from them. They all push when they don’t push anyone else. Ross? They love Ross. Even when he curses and swears and spits.

Keaton is an incredible force for the change of the man, the alteration of his mind from text to skin. Benton knows what he’s doing, and he loved kids a season ago. What happened to Benton in the course of 20 episodes. His seasons of change don’t change him. There are hands all around him.

A hard ass. Focused on the work. On the word of surgery. Undeterred. It cripples him, the focus. I haven’t seen his sister in two seasons. He’s forgotten his mother’s prayer. They’ve created a beautiful woman to give him a life outside and it’s nothing. It’s not penetrating him.

And DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON PETER BENTON the worlds most underutilized, incredible, malwritten character in all of dramatic television - I love this man, don’t get me wrong, next to John Carter and Kerri Weaver, he’s MY GUY - but Peter Benton… Peter…

AND Susan Lewis, who had to take care of her sisters baby who then became her own baby who then got taken away from her and then really mellowed out even though she was a huge part of the show decides suddenly to leave because suddenly her sister is in PHOENIX of all places —

Mr Malcolm’s is a favorite of mine, it deserves so much more hype