ER (TV series)
Following the broadcast of its two-hour pilot movie on September 19, 1994, "ER" premiered Thursday, September 22 at 10:00. It remained in the same Thursday time slot for its entire run. "ER" is NBC's third longest-running drama, after "Law & Order" and "", and, the longest-running American primetime medical drama of all time. On April 2, 2008, NBC announced that the series would return for its fifteenth season. The fifteenth season was originally scheduled to run for 19 episodes before retiring with a two-hour series finale to be broadcast on March 12, 2009, but NBC announced in January 2009 that it would extend the show by an additional three episodes to a full 22-episode order as part of a deal to launch a new series by John Wells titled "Police", later retitled "Southland". "ER"s final episode aired on April 2, 2009; the two-hour episode was preceded by a one-hour retrospective special. The series finale charged $425,000 per 30-second ad spot, more than three times the season's rate of $135,000. From season 4 to season 6 ER cost a record-breaking 13 million dollars per episode. TNT also paid a record price of $1 million an episode for four years of repeats of the series during that time. The cost of the first three seasons was 2 million per episode and seasons 7 to 9 cost 8 million dollars per episode.
ER (season 1)
Producers Leder and Chulack were regular directors on the first season. Rod Holcomb directed the pilot episode and returned for a regular season episode. Charles Haid, Elodie Keene, and Fred Gerber also helmed multiple episodes. Film director Quentin Tarantino contributed a single episode. Other single episode directors include Mark Tinker, Vern Gillum, James Hayman, Daniel Sackheim, Félix Enríquez Alcalá, Anita Addison, James Hayman, and Donna Deitch.Critical reactions for "ER"'s first season were very favorable. Alan Rich, writing for "Variety", praised the direction and editing of the pilot while Eric Mink, writing for the "New York Daily News", said that the pilot of "ER" "was urban, emergency room chaos and young, committed doctors." However some reviewers felt the episodes following the pilot didn't live up to it with Mink commenting that "...the great promise of the "E.R." pilot dissolves into the kind of routine, predictable, sloppily detailed medical drama we've seen many times before."