Clooney’S Last Appearance In The ‘Er’ Coming Up

Sat., Jan. 16, 1999

Richard Huff New York Daily News

The George Clooney countdown has begun - and viewers can expect an onslaught of NBC promotions to herald the exit of the “ER” star.

Following this week’s repeat, there will be only five more episodes featuring Clooney.

NBC will start teasing viewers about Clooney’s departure in a general February-sweeps promotion that will arrive shortly. Commercials specifically promoting “ER” and Clooney will also be coming soon, according to a source.

Clooney, who has played Dr. Doug Ross for five seasons, has announced he wants to focus on making movies but would honor his contract and leave the show at season’s end. However, it was decided that Ross would be written out during the important February sweeps, when ratings are used to set future advertising rates.

The producers, Clooney and NBC decided it was best to have him leave then so that “ER” could move on creatively for the remainder of the year and build momentum for next season.

This week’s rerun will be followed by a new episode next week, another rerun the week after, and then a run of three new episodes that will end with Clooney gone.

That makes his exit date Feb. 18. The show will be the conclusion of a two-parter starting the week before.

In relative terms, Clooney’s exit could be somewhat uneventful - relative, that is, to the recently superhyped farewell to Jimmy Smits and his character on ABC’s “NYPD Blue.” That one played out over a five-episode story arc.

Clooney and the “ER” producers didn’t want that sort of hubbub for his exit - Ross doesn’t die - and the door is being left open for him to return in future episodes.

Not surprisingly, the folks at NBC and the show are tightlipped about the story line, though they started tipping their hand a bit last week with references to an unsolicited job offer to Ross from an out-of-town HMO.

Of the two-episode Clooney-exit arc, word is that the Feb. 11 show is the more explosive, with the departure even downplayed a bit in the Feb. 18 outing.

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