It sort of fell apart at the end so let's not focus on the half of the show that turned into pure soap.

It started out great.... so the 10 stars is for the first few seasons that i can watch for more reasons than nostalgia. The story was excellent, the characters were real, they acted like real people.

It was a compelling and entertaining show....

... and then somewhere around 98, 99 it became a soap opera. It wasn't a drama about an Emergency Room any longer, it was a soap. What was dramatic was contrived and it lost all sense of realism.

And then I slowly tuned out. But, the first few seasons, shows like 9-1-1 could take a lesson from them.

Through all the 15 years that this series runned it influenced me a lot, since it starred on 1st year of Medicine University, through my father's death in the 7th year (when Dr. Green died of a cerebral tumor) till the end with some characters that I never though of dying losing theirs live into some episodes. The first years were more on the following of the 'st year medical residents lives, following them as they turned ER medical or followed other choices thought the years. It never failed on bringing something new to see or some major truno point on the episodes. It also were medically speaking very right in almost all series. It is a must watch to the ones that admire Medicine as a whole along with Chicago Hope (a more dramatic and fictional series) and House M.D. (a more dramatic main character based and investigative series).