I was shocked to see Dr. ...
Laura Innes, ER
Question: I was shocked to see Dr. Weaver leave
ER this month. Does this mean that
Laura Innes has left the series altogether, or is this simply a story line? One would think that for months ahead of time NBC would have hyped this exit of one of the show's last original characters, as they did when
Clooney,
Edwards,
Margulies and
Stringfield left the series. An unrelated question: after snubs from both the Golden Globes and SAG, is it possible for
Brothers & Sisters to get even a few Emmy nominations? A cast that includes Oscar winner
Sally Field, multiple-Emmy nominees
Calista Flockhart,
Rachel Griffiths,
Ron Rifkin and
Rob Lowe, as well as Emmy winner
Patricia Wettig should be destined for Emmy love. Is this a lost cause?
Answer: What was shocking was how well
ER kept Laura Innes' departure a secret (more or less — there were signs this was coming), but to me it's a big plus that NBC didn't make a huge deal out of it, overpromoting it the way, say, CBS did with Grissom's ho-hum temporary sabbatical from
CSI the very same night. (
ER had the more impressive episode that night, if only for this reason.) One of TV Guide's reporters, Ileane Rudolph, just
interviewed Innes, who has always been a class act. She really is leaving the show, but there's always the chance (given Weaver's new TV career path) that she'll return for a guest appearance somewhere down the road. It's not like Innes is hurting for work. She has already established herself as a first-rate TV director, and you'll see her in the credits for upcoming episodes of
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip as well as
ER. But yes, she will be missed. From the start, Weaver was always a fascinating character, someone you often wanted to hate but had to respect. And from her physical disability to her emerging acceptance of her homosexuality, Weaver continued to develop new and surprising shadings as she went up and down the career ladder. As for
Brothers & Sisters at the Emmys, that is a case of a show whose first season is clearly a work in progress. It just keeps getting better, so I'm hopeful that by the end of the season, it will have developed a higher media profile and some of its actors (Field in particular) will be recognized with well-deserved nominations. I would much have preferred that this show (or
Friday Night Lights) got an ensemble-cast SAG nomination over
Boston Legal, that's for sure.
