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Whether it's a snowy nude sprint down Main Street, the
mysterious appearance of a long-lost relative or the improbable death of yet
another of Maggie's boyfriends, life's never dull in the remote hamlet of
Cicely, Alaska. Colorful characters and quirky plots propelled Northern
Exposure into the hearts of millions of viewers, earning the CBS "dramedy"
series seven Emmy awards between its 1990 debut and its demise six
seasons later. Dr. Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow) is an urban New York yuppie who consents to
four years of rural servitude after Alaska pays his medical-school tuition.
Joel's fish-out-of-water adventures drive the show, but it's the quirky ensemble
of characters--Chris, the DJ/philosopher (John Corbett), Holling, the bartender
(John Cullum), Maurice, the town patriarch (Barry Corbin), Ed, the filmmaker
(Darren E. Burrows) and Maggie, the bush pilot (Janine Turner), among
others–-that keeps the series consistently entertaining. The town develops its
own offbeat personality as well, a Mayberry-meets-Twin-Peaks blend of Native
mysticism, Aurora Borealis-induced dreams, unlikely tales of long-lost family
members, and rumors of a Bigfoot-like creature known simply as "Adam." Northern Exposure provides a utopian escape--a place where life is
interesting but never dangerous, everyone's insightful, the mystical becomes
real and nobody's burdened with a mundane 9-to-6 desk job. Cicely is a
delightful place to visit, even if it's only for an hour at a time.
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