Thursday, November 22, 2012

A St. Elsewhere Treat on YouTube

Someone has put full episodes of St. Elsewhere on YouTube--enjoy it while you can.
If it's still there, jump to 39:09 for this brief but hilarious
encounter between  Drs. Auschlander and Martin.

I couldn't believe it when I saw it, but I came across a video on YouTube with "St. Elsewhere" in the otherwise German title, and when I saw that it was 48 minutes long, I realized what it was--a complete episode. Turns out to be the premiere of season two, "The Ties That Bind" (the title of the video contains the original air date, October 26, 1983). That's exciting, because in North America, the only St. Elsewhere you can watch online is season one (on Hulu). "Lust Et Veritas" on the same channel.

This is a great opportunity for those who have never seen the show but were curious enough about it to not stop reading this by now to check out what episodes of St. Elsewhere were like. They are embedded below.

For me, season two is where the show really hits its stride, and it starts right here. Only the first season of St. Elsewhere has been released on DVD. The whole series is available to watch on 4OD (Channel 4 On Demand) in the U.K. Outside of the few television channels that show reruns (the only one on my cable system that has shown in the past twelve years or so is iChannel; they're broadcasting season three right now--"My Aim Is True" runs tonight at 10), there's no way to watch seasons two through six.

I'm curious to see how long the videos stay up. I read recently that a video of the show's final scene was on YouTube but was taken down. I enjoyed a channel that posted something like 70 episodes of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman last year, but it's gone now. The channel hosting these episodes has a lot of classic television, including Jake and the Fatman, Vega$, Police Woman, Murder, She Wrote, The Rockford Files, and The Fall Guy, to name the ones I recognized by sight after a quick scroll.

I doubt this blog gets anywhere enough traffic for me to worry about drawing too much attention to the presence of these videos, so I might as well embed them here for now. I'm curious to see how long they last before I have to edit this. Enjoy!

"The Ties That Bind" (season 2, episode 1):
This episode introduces Nancy Stafford as Joan Halloran, and features guest stars Alan Arkin and Piper Laurie as Jerry & Fran Singleton and Marian Mercer as potential heart transplant recipient Eve Leighton.

"Lust Et Veritas" (season 2, episode 2):
This episode features the debut of Mark Harmon as Dr. Bobby Caldwell and Stephen Furst as med student Elliott Axelrod. Also features an Emmy-nominated performance from Piper Laurie.

Update, June 23, 2013: Yes, it was too good to last. The two videos have been removed from YouTube.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks a lot for posting these! With only season 1 available, I'll take any complete episodes I can. I wonder if these were uploaded from UK, where St Elsewhere runs currently on Ch 4? Regardless, I appreciate the post and your website. St Elsewhere, 30 years old, remains the best hopital show I've seen, with ER a distant second. The ensemble cast was second to none. Hopefully, someday, FOX will wise up and release the rest of the seasons.

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