Flawed Characters Called Key To ‘Er’

Already a runaway hit with the public, NBC’s medical drama “ER” turned out to be a whopping success with Emmy Award voters too. The reason for the show’s popularity, producer-director Mimi Leder explained backstage Sunday night, is not difficult to discern.

“What’s appealing about ‘ER’ is that the characters are flawed,” said Leder, who picked up one of the eight Emmys for “ER.” “They’re like us. We, as people, can relate to them.”

In the heart-breaking episode that won Leder her directing Emmy, “Love’s Labor Lost,” the doctor played by Anthony Edwards encountered a problematic delivery and lost the life of the mother.

The episode also earned an Emmy for its writer, Dr. Lance A. Gentile, a former emergency room physician.

When asked where the story came from, Gentile told reporters, “I thought of my worst nightmare as an emergency room physician and I wrote that.”