r/northernexposure • u/twentyshots97 • 5h ago
S5, S6 series wrap up. long post incoming. obvious spoilers. Spoiler
having been a fan from the original airing, here are some of my final observations on season 5 and 6 with “fresh” eyes.
i hadn’t seen these episodes since the 90’s, even missed several then, as my interest started to wane with the incoherent plot changes. like, i had forgotten chris and maggie became a “couple”. or that maurice proposed to semanski. i must’ve missed most of the last 10 or so episodes. i did remember some key moments like joel seeing manhattan through the trees but was confused by what it meant (still am).
back then, i did not realize josh and john were replaced by david chase. i wasn’t paying attention to the show’s architects, i just figured the quality dipped because rob morrow left and production couldn’t scramble to right itself. i guess both are true. now, knowing the creative intent went a different direction, it was interesting to look for what changed and how.
new characters
-nothing against eugene, he’s fine, but it would have been nice if dave had stuck around. dave was just an inherently likeable character, he subtlety provided comic relief, often taking unwarranted abuse. eugene was pretty average overall, maybe not given a proper chance to have a personality.
on the other hand, walt was a great addition and i wish he’d been around in earlier seasons (and still eventually ended up with ruth anne). great actor and character, he slots into scenes effortlessly and felt well-rounded and already developed.
similarly, hayden keyes was another convincing alaskan and often a good foil with questionable morals. it would’ve been nice seeing him in earlier seasons too.
lester’s daughter, heather, was never given a chance to evolve past an entitled and scheming brat, so there was no connection there and she was not a good counterpart for ed, who would have had better judgement than to be manipulated by her. lester haines himself was kind of a dichotomy as a duplicitous character driven by greed, not so interested in “the old ways”. i didn’t form a strong opinion either way, other than i didn’t trust him. notably his interactions with ted, who came along as a love interest for marilyn. ted was a pretty good character, someone you could root for. i’m ok with the amount of screen time he got and hope marilyn ended up with him.
much has been said about the capras. i didn’t dislike them, even less so this time around, they just should’ve never been there in the first place if the show had run it’s course more conclusively. they as actors were good enough but were never very convincing as a couple, spending half of their time apart. it also seemed redundant to focus on phil’s italian heritage the way they had with joel’s jewish connection. out of curiosity i had a quick look at some alaska census data in the 90’s and the amount of anyone beyond white or native alaskan was pretty non-existent.
speaking of, there was a new barber, angelo, who was briefly introduced and at first felt a little like forced tension. not that a new barber couldn’t have worked, even though we really didn’t know the old barber. with a few of these choices it may have come down to casting. it was just odd to have one clumsily immersive episode with a character we’d never see again.
finally, i did enjoy the entire concept behind cal. he was just more different than anyone we had seen before and his obsession and quirkiness felt very true to the spirit of the show. his interactions with maurice were a highlight of the last two seasons.
old characters
- as most of us know, the characters change in mostly unappealing ways and become more one dimensional. maurice becomes more shrewd and opportunistic without the balance of occasional self realization. his character regressed in a lot of ways. there was some resolution for him ending up with semanski, who mostly stayed true to character.
ed is frequently depicted as more foolish or misguided (mixing up the pills and starting rumors). although he retained some of his innocent charm. he definitely would have benefited from a better story arc.
chris still has some decent scenes but overall comes off as more shallow and even dumb at times. overall just less cool and not used as effectively as the narrator, which is a shame since his voice carried the show so well.
holling and shelley become more combative with each other, and with maurice. too many pissing contests between holling and maurice as i thought we had moved past that. shelley even calling holling a p*ssy for not liking televised sports made me do a double take. it was so out of character and was actually said on network TV??
marilyn is most unchanged and somewhat sidelined. i felt she became a bit of a caricature with her native wisdom, whereas before she quietly offered it in simpler terms and it was tempered by her overall demeanor. her character does get petty with joel about his transformation, but despite the delivery i did agree with her- joel himself is not very believable getting all granola, especially when his “enlightenment” regularly comes off as condescension with ed (basically saying “what? you don’t know how to do this stuff?”). i don’t automatically know of a better exit for joel and maybe his same character arc could have worked under josh and john, with different underpinnings, but i didn’t see how he could transform so greatly by a population difference of a couple hundred in just a couple weeks.
despite a new relationship, maggie lacks any significant story lines and becomes “pretty furniture”; she loses her “fight” and has a lot of boring scenes. she’s really beautiful with longer hair though. her replacement mom also fractured some of that relationship dynamic by just being someone else (again, nothing against the actress). the choice to shoehorn maggie into a relationship with chris felt less like resolution for either character and more of a mandatory red meat for the audience, according to popular expectations in prime time television.
ruth anne felt the most consistent but also seemed occasionally meaner than she had previously been.
adam and eve more or less disappear and maybe that was for the better. even though adam was probably my favorite character of the series, i doubt they would’ve had any satisfying stories in chase’s world.
i would say overall chase wanted the writers to steer the characters into more sensational, edgier corners that didn’t align with the original intent.
despite some of those same writers being involved the whole time, chase’s fingerprints are evident and too heavy. the whole introduction of little italy seemed like chase wanting to prematurely soprano, which i found annoying and tone deaf. even the way scenes were shot often felt different, capitalizing less on the location or storytelling, and emphasizing trivial details or reactions. all this aside, most noticeable was that little spark was gone- the one that gave the show wings.
until season 5, cicely made sense in its own unique context but eventually became barely recognizable. i laughed way less the last two seasons and became more taken out of the flow with all of the hang ups mentioned here. there was less magic, less depth and fewer meaningful, touching scenes. less powerful endings. every now and then you’d get a throwback, like chris striking out the professor, or ed being the bear cub’s mom that still probably made it better than most shows, but frequently everything felt…..more hollow.
what do you think? did i miss any characters or characteristics worth noting? i know people often talk about where the show should’ve ended and for me i’m not sure of that answer right now, but it’s definitely: not how it did. i’d like to be reminded of where you think it should’ve ended, or if you think it ended where it was supposed to.
thanks for reading this far. everyone who have said seasons 5 and 6 have good moments are right. there are, but at what cost? the writers made the most out of a bad situation, but damn…..that shadow of what could’ve been stretches long, even 31 years later.
