“Northern Exposure” Exposed

For reasons that still bewilder me, whenever I get the monthly report on what article on this site is most viewed, it’s a piece that I wrote back here over 13 years ago, on February 24, 2013 – “That Ending of “Northern Exposure.”

(I began this website only a month earlier!  So, clearly, I hit my peak early...)

 Apparently, either it’s that people on the Internet love the TV series and want to find out more about its finale episode, and do a search for it – or they just love the show and do a search.  Or maybe they want to find out about the wonderful song that was used, “Our Town,” which was written and sung by Iris DeMent. 

Whatever the reason, it not only has the been the top-read article for years that has brought people here, many who leave interesting comments, but it’s always been the top-read article by a lot.

So, I figured that for any people who have come to this site and maybe (hopefully…) stuck around, I thought I should mention that the show’s two stars, Rob Morrow and Janine Turner, have had a very successful video podcast where they bring on guests involved with the series – behind the camera and in front, from series regulars to guest stars, and discuss each of the 110 episodes.  They began the podcast 10 months ago (as of this writing) and so far there have been 58 hour-long installments. It’s called “Northern Disclosure.”  For those interested (and I’ll post this with the original article, as well, as an Update), you can find it here.

 By the way, as a point of personal privilege, I’ll also mention that my good friend Jeff Melvoin – who served as co-executive producer for 93 episodes and wrote 18, which remarkably is almost 20% – has been a guest on the podcast.  I haven’t gotten around yet to asking him how many of the podcasts he was on, but for starters, here he is talking about Season 3, Episode 10, “Dateline: Cicely.”  You can watch it here.   Jeff was aware what a big fan I was of the series, so at one point he sort of wrote me into it.  He needed a name for where a mental asylum would be located, and it became the town of Ellisberg.  (He thought that two “ll’s” would make it look more like a village.)  As it turned out, Ellisberg and the asylum before a running plot line on several episodes.

​Here's the sort-of trailer that Rob Morrow and Janine Turner did to promote the podcast and explain what they'll be doing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGnleEKi7DE