It seems a shame that Northern Exposure — a ’90s dramedy about a neurotic Jewish doctor from New York forced to pay back his student loans by working in a tiny Alaska town — is not available on any streaming platform. (Licensing fees for its rock-and-jazz-heavy soundtrack have been cited as the reason.)
The feel-good show came from Joshua Brand and John Falsey, creators of ABC’s thirtysomething, and CBS ordered eight episodes out of the gate, premiering the series in summer 1990. “I remember reading that script and thinking it was the first TV script I had read that read like a movie,” recalls Rob Morrow, 57, who landed the starring role of Dr. Joel Fleischman at age 32.
The show did not shoot in Alaska — its fictional town of Cicely was Roslyn, Washington — nor had Brand and Falsey ever been there before they wrote the pilot. “But somehow, there’s a mythic quality that they just tapped into,” notes Morrow, who visited the state after Northern Exposure made him a star. (It rose as high as 11th place in its fourth season.) The show swept the 1992 Emmys, winning for writing, supporting actress (Valerie Mahaffey) and outstanding drama.
“The only thing that was weird was that [the creators] were adamant that [the cast] didn’t get up [onstage] with them,” Morrow recalls. “And that hurt our feelings, because we didn’t understand why.”
This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
