Magical Realism: "Northern Exposure" 25 Years Later

Magical Realism: "Northern Exposure" 25 Years Later

Brian Doan

July 20, 2015

22 min read

"We

used Alaska more for what it represents than what it is. It is disconnected

both physically and mentally from the lower 48, and it has an attractive

mystery."<br>—Joshua

Brand, co-creator of "Northern Exposure"

CHRIS: Soapy once told me that the thing he loved most about

country music was its sense of myth. There’s heroes and villains, good and bad,

right and wrong. The protagonist strolls into bar, which he sees as a

microcosm of the big picture. He contemplates his existence and he asks

himself, ‘who’s that babe in the red dress?’ All right. Well, you know the way

I see it, if you’re here for four more years or four more weeks–you’re here

right now. You know, and I think when you’re somewhere you ought to be there,

and because it’s not about how long you stay in a place. It’s about what you do

while you’re there. And when you go, is that place any better for you having

been there? Am I answering your question?.

JOEL: Uh, no, not really.

—"Soapy Sanderson" ("Northern Exposure," Episode 1.3)

JOEL FLEISCHMAN

The secret to Dr. Fleischman was in his eyes.

In the pilot alone, they could be darting, distrustfully

analytical (as when he arrives in the remote outback of Cicely, Alaska, having

been lied to about his presumed term of medical service in Anchorage, and

immediately scopes out the one-street downtown with its worn-out shop fronts

and wandering moose); they expressed puzzlement (as in his first encounters

with Marilyn, the taciturn Native American who turned up at his office

reception desk for work, despite never actually being hired); they expressed

great fear (as town patriarch Maurice pulled a shotgun on him in a fishing

boat); and they could be playful and sarcastic (as when he meets his new

land-lady, the bush pilot Maggie, and immediately kicks off a screwball

relationship that would make Donald Ogden Stewart reach for his pen).

The eyes were everything, and it’s through them that we first got

a glimpse of television’s future.

Debuting as an eight-episode CBS summer series on July 12, 1990,

"Northern Exposure" immediately dropped viewers into a space that

felt both alien and warmly inviting. "Exposure" could be called

"The Sentimental Education of Joel Fleischman": a young doctor from

New York (Rob Morrow) goes to Alaska to fulfill his medical school loan

obligations (the state paid for his training), but instead of being based in

Anchorage as promised, he is shipped to the small, quirky town of Cicely, one

of 845 residents living in the middle of nowhere. There, he encounters

townspeople who include Chris Stevens (John Corbett), an ex-con philosopher who

is the sole DJ at KBHR, the town’s sole radio station (centerpiece-by-default

of the grandly-named "Minnifield Communications Network"); radio

station owner Maurice Minnifield (Barry Corbin), a wealthy, pompous, bigoted

astronaut hero with dreams of turning Cicely into the Riviera of the northwest;

Holling Vincoeur (John Cullum), a kindly

63-year old bar owner, and Shelly Tambo (Cynthia Geary), his wide-eyed, 20-year

old ex-beauty queen paramour; Marilyn Whirlwind (Elaine Miles), whose own

subtly expressive face acts as a kind of silent Greek chorus on Fleischman’s

many missteps; and Ruth-Anne Miller (Peg Phillips), the 70-something shop owner who has seen

everything, yet somehow remains one of the program’s least-cynical characters.

Most importantly, he meets two residents around whom his spiritual

journey will be based: Ed Chigliak (Darren E. Burrows), a young Native American

filmmaker and budding cinephile, and Maggie O’Connell (Janine Turner), the

Grosse Pointe refugee whose relationship with Fleischman will form the backbone

of the series. It is this triangle of interactions I want to use as a metaphor

in what follows, because I think Joel, Ed, and Maggie each offer overlapping

windows on "Northern Exposure"‘s role in a broader TV landscape, and

why the program still resonates.

Joel looks

out at his seemingly barren new home and initially fails to notice its rich,

playful magic. Similarly, the notion of a summer replacement series as being

anything but a burn-off of a failed pilot, or episodes of an already-cancelled

show, was relatively new in 1990, and no one really expected "Northern

Exposure" to be different. "I don’t know whose idea it was to launch

in the summer," Rob Morrow would recall to Entertainment

Weekly 20 years later. "I don’t think anyone had any idea what they

had on their hands." Despite solid ratings and strong reviews, it didn’t

continue into the fall season, disappearing for six months while its creators,

John Falsey and Joshua Brand, and production studio Universal negotiated with

the network for a larger budget. Somehow, its reputation only grew in its

absence; in a 1991 piece for "Entertainment Weekly"...