Season six of Northern Exposure is a mixed bag for me. It has some very good episodes, including the wonderful season premiere in which Joel, after ingesting some concoction of Ed's when he is sick, dreams of an alternate reality in which he is a practicing doctor in NY, married to Shelly (who is a corporate lawyer) and everyone in the show has a role that is pretty much the opposite of their regular character. But, it is also the season in which Rob Morrow's contract battle comes to a head and he ends up leaving the show midway through the season (in another great episode). The showrunners, hoping to save the show, introduce a new doctor into the series, Phillip Capra (played by Paul Provenza), and his journalist wife, Michelle (played by Teri Polo) who move the Cicely from Los Angeles. At first, they are excited to be there, and then the writers start bouncing their story around so they love Alaska in one episode, hate it in the next, and the whole thing does not work. Rob Morrow did stick around for 15 episodes, with a much-reduced role in which his character moved to the wilderness to live with one of the tribes on a remote island. His last episode, entitled "The Quest" sees him and Maggie on a trek through the wilderness looking for a magical city of the north. That episode would also mark the final appearance of Adam (Adam Arkin) the wacky acerbic chef who has been a recurring character throughout the season.
In the final few episodes, it seemed like the writers were just throwing things against the wall to see what would stick, including trying a totally out-of-the-blue romance between Maggie and Chris. Ultimately, the ratings got so bad that the show ended up being canceled. It did have a series finale that for the most part felt like just another episode until the final scenes over which the song "Our Town" (which thankfully Universal paid for the rights to) put a bow on the series.
If you get the US DVD set, the only extras are deleted scenes for most of the episodes. Of course, the issue with the music in the US releases remains with some, but not all, of the original songs from the show being replaced with canned instrumental music. As I said above, thankfully, the final song to appear in the show, Our Town, was used because the ending montage would not have worked nearly as well without it.
Overall, the final season was uneven, to say the least. The show definitely lost a lot with Rob Morrow's departure and without him, the show could not recapture that fish-out-of-water aspect that made the show so good in the beginning. Unlike the show ER, which survived multiple cast members leaving and was able to plug new characters in for those who left, I equate Morrow's leaving akin to what would have happened if Alan Alda would have left MASH. He was clearly the main character, and the show could not survive without him despite the fact that the other actors did a great job in their roles. Unfortunately, the show just petered out at the end, and it never did get a great send-off.
In the final few episodes, it seemed like the writers were just throwing things against the wall to see what would stick, including trying a totally out-of-the-blue romance between Maggie and Chris. Ultimately, the ratings got so bad that the show ended up being canceled. It did have a series finale that for the most part felt like just another episode until the final scenes over which the song "Our Town" (which thankfully Universal paid for the rights to) put a bow on the series.
If you get the US DVD set, the only extras are deleted scenes for most of the episodes. Of course, the issue with the music in the US releases remains with some, but not all, of the original songs from the show being replaced with canned instrumental music. As I said above, thankfully, the final song to appear in the show, Our Town, was used because the ending montage would not have worked nearly as well without it.
Overall, the final season was uneven, to say the least. The show definitely lost a lot with Rob Morrow's departure and without him, the show could not recapture that fish-out-of-water aspect that made the show so good in the beginning. Unlike the show ER, which survived multiple cast members leaving and was able to plug new characters in for those who left, I equate Morrow's leaving akin to what would have happened if Alan Alda would have left MASH. He was clearly the main character, and the show could not survive without him despite the fact that the other actors did a great job in their roles. Unfortunately, the show just petered out at the end, and it never did get a great send-off.
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