Northern Exposure - Season 1 (1990)

Sometimes when I'm a little down I turn to one of my favorite television shows and it always seems to cheer me up, that is Northern Exposure.  It's a show about a small town in Alaska named Cicely, full of eccentric characters who form a melting pot of true small town humor.

The main character is Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow), a Jewish doctor from New York who travels to Alaska to fulfill an agreement he made with the state.  They funded his college education of $125,000 and he is obligated to repay them with four years in indentured servitude.  When Joel arrives in Anchorage he learns his services are no longer needed, the state funded too many doctors and has more than it needs.  Extremely pleased Joel thinks he's received a free ride, that is until he learns he's being reassigned to the small wilderness town of Cicely on the cusp of the Alaskan Rivera!  Not at all pleased Joel tries everything he can to find a loophole in his contract, but it appears he's stuck for quite a bit of time in a small town with a population of 215 people, whose manners and personalities are completely different from anything he's ever experienced before.

Northern Exposure is your typical fish out of water story, with a fresh look and some great supporting characters.  It was a very successful show that unfortunately only ran six years, with only five really spectacular seasons.  One of the few shows that started off with extremely well written episodes, never needing anytime at all to acclimate, which was good seeing the first two seasons only had about eight episodes a piece.  If you've never seen this show before I highly recommend checking it out, you'll find a lot of familiar faces and some extraordinary characters, story-lines, music and scenery.

Top 3 Favorite Episodes

Aired: 8/2/1990

Joel attempts to help Maurice close a deal on a proposed resort project with two Japanese business men, in hopes of becoming attending physician at the resort.  Holling asks Shelly to marry him when he learns she's pregnant, but then has second thoughts about going through with it.

Aired: 7/12/1990

Joel gets transferred to a small town in Cecily Alaska to serve out his required duty to the state of Alaska.  It's here he meets an strange cast of characters.  Maurice, the rich and single astronaut who owns most of the town, Maggie the tomboy bush plane pilot, Ed the dimwitted Indian with high hopes of becoming a film director, and many more outrageous characters.

Aired: 8/30/1990

Chris leaves the radio station to work on his art project, and discovers he has quite a bit in common with a new visitor to Cicely.  Joel travels to a remote ranger station and ends up getting stuck on the way back.  He is saved by none other than Adam, the Bigfoot-like creature who the townspeople believed to be roaming the wilderness.  Turns out Adam is a barefooted, scruffy fellow with the flair for exquisite cuisine and the ability to over exaggerate everything.

8/10