On the seven hour flight back home from Ireland Sunday, I watched most of Northern Exposure’s Season 1. Given that the show ran for six seasons, I wondered when I would ever have the time to binge watch the remaining 100 or so episodes of such a great show.
Well, like Forrest said “Shit happens.” Turns out that I now have a couple days of Covid isolation to watch all of the episodes of Northern Exposure. That’s affirmative, Pam and I both popped positive for the virus and are now doing the Paxlovid treatment to get us back to where we need to be. Life comes at you, maybe not too fast sometimes, but it does come at you.
When the Covid test popped positive, my first thought was “Been gone from Buzzy’s two weeks. Memorial Day Weekend coming up. Lots to do. Why now and why me?” Granted there is never a particularly good time to get Covid, but as I have always maintained – God is a woman and she sure has a strange sense of humor.
But a funny thing did happen on my way to the Covid woodshed, in that once I got past denial and anger, my third stage of bargaining was “Cool, I can now lay around the shanty and …. watch the rest of Northern Exposure.” (For the complete “lay around the shanty” lyric see song below.)
I am only 30-some years late (and thanks to it now being shown on Prime Video) I have finally gotten around to watching and enjoying what many critics and T-V fans have long maintained was one of the best of T-V shows of all time. It is sometimes referred to as “The Best T-V Show You Never Heard Of (click here.)
I had heard of it, but just never had had the opportunity to watch it. Because I was doing kids in the 90’s, what little T-V time I had back then I spent watching sports. Shows about a young Jewish doctor stuck in a small Alaskan town with a bunch of peculiar locals just didn’t make it into my on deck T-V circle.
To give you more of how Northern Exposure originated and evolved, check out Jenna doing a good interview here with members of the show’s cast:
Of course the small town theme and a local bar with a cast of characters appealed to me. (There is also a country store run by a tough old lady named Ruth-Ann who reminded me a little of Mae Morgan.)
Here is a nice summary of what made Northern Exposure so good:
I like that “a life well lived in the United States of America.”
Have featured this tune a couple times previously here on the Buzzyblog, but it never gets old. How could it?
P.S. Thanks to the efforts of several family and friends tending the counter for me, Buzzy’s Country Store remains open and ready to serve you with your favorite flavors. As for my return, as soon as I pop a negative “I’ll be back.” (Here’s looking at you Arnold.)