The phrase, ‘end of an era’ can be somewhat over used in my profession. When a sitcom that has only been on the air for a couple of years comes to a close and people say it’s ‘the end of an era,’ it’s not really true. In the case of the enormously successful and popular medical drama series, ER, however, the phrase finds its ultimate meaning.

After fifteen years as a staple in primetime television, ER saw its last patient in April of 2009 and that historic season is now available on DVD. Not only a season of goodbyes that is truly unparalleled in television history, this fifteenth and final year saw new characters created and fully realized while proudly saying good bye and paying tribute to everyone who came before them.

The ending of this show not only meant a lot because of the characters that it brought to life each week but also because it heralded an end to a certain style of show; the emotional, dramatic kind. I can’t think of another series that has as much raw emotion as ER did. Even when the show had clearly ‘jumped the shark,’ they still presented stories with a reality and intensity that cannot be found anywhere else to this day. Even shows like Grey’s Anatomy which can touch those moments of true sorrow and emotion doesn’t really compare because balancing that out is a true sense of comedy. The emotions of ER were real. The comedic moments that happened in the midst of tragedy or sorrow were never any more powerful than they would have been in real life. There was nothing corny or staged about the humor in the show. And often times when it did happen, which was rare, it was a gallows humor that again matched what it would have been in real life.

In an odd way this final season is what most viewers had been waiting for since the eleventh or twelfth year as the show began to sag because they knew a final season meant going to back to the beginning and back to what made the show great to begin with.

One thing that did surprise me about this season was that there were no major disasters. Every year the show had consistently tried to one up the previous year with varying degrees of success. The tank that attacked the ER comes to mind as a colossal failure, but train crashes, bus crashes, plane crashes, helicopters falling out of the sky, all of these things worked brilliantly and I was slightly disappointed that in their final year they weren’t able to recapture one of those awe inspiring action type of moments.

Wasting no time in major cast changes the season opener has us saying an emotional good bye to a longtime friend, Mekhi Phifer as Dr.

Greg Pratt and then following it up with the exit of the actor who kept the series interesting for me personally for years Maura Tierney as Dr. Abby Lockhart. But, for as many cast members as we lose this season just as many old favorites are brought back to cushion the blow. Shane West returns as a fully rehabilitated Ray Barnett, Goran Visnjic returns briefly as a finally happily married Luka Kovac and thanks to a couple of flash back episodes some dearly departed friends return as well.

As far as the newbies this year we have former Roswell star, Shiri Appleby as a new intern with a crush, the adorable Julian Morris as surgical intern Dr. Andrew Wade and of course the biggest addition, Angela Bassett as the new Chief of the ER.

With so many characters gone and so many killed off it seemed impossible to do justice to them all, but somehow, they managed to do it. The most memorable episode is Heal Thyself where they connect the late Dr. Greene (Anthony Edwards) to the current new chief of the ER Dr. Banfield (Angela Bassett) in a flash back show that was really amazing. That episode not only brought back Anthony Edwards but also briefly Laura Innes, Paul McCrane and Abraham Benrubi.

Another stand out episode was Age of Innocence that deals with the incredibly creepy topic of how to treat a man who is very likely a pedophile but has been found not guilty in court. The guest star playing this man walks the line magnificently and makes you question back and forth for the entire show; David Lyons gives an amazing performance as Dr. Simon Brenner a man who is still suffering the long term effects of having been abused himself when he was only ten years old.

Dream Runner is an incredibly clever piece of storytelling. It’s basically a ‘do-over’ episode mainly involving two patients and the different courses of action that Neela (Parminder Nagra) can take in their treatments. Based on those decisions some very different outcomes arise and the very best part is we may not be sure at the very end what actually happened. This was a more sci-fi approach than I’ve ever seen in a drama before but they made it work brilliantly.

There’s another really beautiful episode called, A Long Strange Trip where we meet the man who created the Emergency Department at County General and where we see the return of William H. Macy as Dr. Morgan-Stern. The 40’s flashbacks are at first a little cheesy but ultimately become very moving.

The most star studded episode of the season is definitely Old Times where we see the return of George Clooney, Julianna Margulies, Noah Wyle, Eriq La Salle and guest stars Susan Sarandon and Ernest Borgnine. It’s an episode dealing with organ donation and

transplants but ultimately isn’t really as good as the sum of its parts. It’s not bad, in fact it really is quite good, but with the star power they pulled in for it, it should have been amazing!

And of course we have to mention the somewhat drawn out 2 hour finale episode, And In The End… which stars a bunch of the original cast members and even brings back the old school intro that the show stopped sporting years ago. The opening few minutes of the show, if I’m not mistaken, pays homage to the original pilot and at times is shot for shot exactly the same as the pilot with just different characters in them; for example Archie Morris is the new Mark Greene; scary, I know. It wasn’t the strongest note for the show to go out on, but it wasn’t terrible.

As far as special features go, ER has never been good at including anything more than some deleted scenes. Those are present again in this set as well as, believe it or not a Final Farewell featurette. This hour long piece is a fantastic tribute to the show and features interviews with tons of cast members that span the life of the show from the pilot to the finale. This was clearly a special that was aired on television prior to the airing of the final episode so it wasn’t created for this DVD release, but it was still a great, great addition to the set and saved it from getting yet another pitiful grade in the “Special Features” department.

If you used to be a fan of ER but lost interest as your favorite characters and actors starting leaving the show, or if you thought it just got really old and repetitive over the years, this is the season to come back to it! If you saw how it began and how it grew to be the cultural phenomenon that it became you should definitely revisit it now at its end. And if you’ve been a die-hard fan all the way through I know there will be nothing stopping you from picking up this final piece of ER history!