Cicely, Alaska
Northern Exposure was a quirky, surreal, character-driven comedy television show, originally broadcast between 1990 and 1995.
The central character was Joel Fleischman (played by Rob Morrow), a New York Jewish doctor who is contractually obligated to practice in the tiny remote Alaskan town of Cicely for four years in order to repay a student loan from the state. The comedy centred originally on the clash between Fleischman's rather neurotic urban mindset and the individual, easy-going and community-minded people around him. As time went on, the show began to focus more and more on the quirky characters of the town.
Main Characters
- Maurice Minnifield (Barry Corbin), ex-astronaut, aging millionaire, entrepreneur and all-American hero, determined to make tiny Cicely the next boomtown, the 'Alaskan Riviera," to use his words.
- Chris Stevens (John Corbett), the philosophical ex-felon DJ, who intersperses the music of his morning show with musings on the nature of life, or readings of everything from philosophy to Tolstoy and Where the Wild Things Are;
- Maggie O'Connell (Janine Turner), fiery, independent, yet somewhat neurotic bush-pilot, whose boyfriends all die in bizarre accidents. She has the mother of all love-hate relationships with Fleischman;
- Shelly Tambo (Cynthia Geary), 18 year old Manitoban beauty pageant winner, brought to Cicely by Maurice, who had fallen in love with her. However immediately on arrival she met, fell in love with, and now lives with:
- Holling Vincoeur (John Cullum), the sexagenarian ex-hunter, now given up killing and the owner of 'The Brick' bar and restaurant, where he lives with Shelly Tambo. Best friend of Maurice until they fell out over Shelly, his main worry is that, since the males of his family mostly live to over 100, Shelly will die before he does;
- Ruth-Anne Miller (Peg Phillips) octogenarian owner of the local store;
- Ed Chigliak (Darren E. Burrows), a shy native foundling and general gopher for Maurice, learned everything he knows about life and the outside world from movies, especially those of Woody Allen. Ed is a Shaman-in-training and is occasionally visited by his invisible spirit guide, 'One Who Waits';
- Marilyn Whirlwind (Elaine Miles), Fleishman's Buddha-like self-appointed receptionist and dispenser of native wisdom and common sense. Never uses one word where none will do.
Recurring guest stars included:
- Adam Arkin, son of Alan Arkin, as wildman/gourmet chef/possible ex-CIA agent 'Adam'
- Valerie Mahaffey as his wife 'Eve'
- Anthony Edwards as the hyperallergic lawyer Mike Monroe, exiled to Cicely for the sake of his health;
- Graham Greene as Leonard Quinhagak, the native witch-doctor and Ed's mentor;
- Richard Cummings Jr. as Bernard Stevens, Chris' half-brother;
- William J. White as Dave, the cook.
It is also worth noting the involvement of series creator/producer/writer David Chase, who went on to bring The Sopranos to prominence.
Thematic and Technical Details
The main street of Cicely was actually that of Roslyn in Washington.
Northern Exposure's unique flavor comes from a combination of various influences: the show?s creators, Joshua Brand and John Falsey, had been members of the Esalen Institute in California where they imbibed eclectically "spiritual" worldview, best exemplified in wisdom writings of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and his disciple, American anthropologist Joseph Campbell (whose works are frequently referenced in the series). There are also fantasy elements, which were likely inherited from the novels of Carlos Castañeda and, on a higher level, the works of Latin American magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez. Both were also conversant with classical Russian Literature (Falsey had a major in Russian literature from Berkeley.) This characteristic is evident in the drastically satirical elements from the show that are ?trademarks? of the Russian literary grotesque style of such authors as Gogol and Dostoevsky. Above all, the Northern Exposure explored the timeless themes that pattern the human condition: envy, love, hate, aging, snobbery, ambition, motherhood, alienation, boredom, et cetera, all in a broad-minded and humane manner that attracted faithful following from around the globe.
The show frequently made use of dream- and fantasy-sequences and other dense imagery. In that sense, Northern Exposure could be described as a light hearted version of Twin Peaks which was filmed in the same area.
