Heading North to Cicely
Continuing what threatens to be a recurring theme here, today’s post combines both nostalgia and television. Fresh on the heels of completing Season 6 of The West Wing we started looking for another show to watch, and fortuitously landed on Northern Exposure. Oh, what a show!
A quick capsule for those unfamiliar with it. Joel Fleischman, a newly-minted doctor from New York City, made his way through medical school thanks to a scholarship from the State of Alaska. A scholarship for which he owes Alaska a period of service as a doctor.
Heading for Alaska is not a perfect scenario for any Jewish boy from New York but he resolves to make the most of it and enjoy his stay in the (comparatively) big city atmosphere of Anchorage. On his arrival he discovers that unfortunately the position there has been cut, but his boss Pete explains that: “… what we’ve decided to do is set you up in Cicely, situated in an area that we Alaskans refer to as The Alaskan Riviera”.
Wackiness ensues as he begins his sojourn with the natives, and the Riviera it ain’t. What started as a funny and charming, but reasonably “straight” fish-out-of-water story moved within just a few episodes to become one of the most thought-provoking and surreal shows ever broadcast.
Weighty issues of life, death, love, friendship, and responsibility are charted through the lives of the 800-odd residents of Cicely … and some of them are very odd. Every Northern Exposure fan has their favorite character and for me it’s Chris, the main host on the local radio station KBHR. Self-educated and philosophical by nature, he often treats his morning listeners to readings from Thoreau, Whitman, Jung and other pillars of modern thought.
Here’s just one of Chris’s monologues from behind his microphone at KBHR: