eleven officers and six civilians and
destroying several police cars.
Impact Although individual police
officers received high praise for
their heroic actions on the day of the
shoot-out, the event resulted in criti-
cism of the police response overall
and a debate about policies sur-
rounding automatic weapons and
the weapons that police carry. While
many concluded that such events
would occur with more frequency in
the future if police did not increase
their weaponry, others contended
that drastic policy change should
not be the result of media sensation-
alism surrounding a few infrequent
events.
Further Reading
Rehder, William J., and Gordon
Dillow.Where the Money Is: True
Tales from the Bank Robber y Capital
of the World. New York: W. W.
Norton, 2003.
Robinson, Paul.Would You Convict?
Seventeen Cases That Challenged the Law. New York:
New York University Press, 1999.
Brion Sever
See also Crime; Gun control; Los Angeles riots;
Police brutality.
Northern Exposure
Identification Television series
Producers Joshua Brand (c. 1952- ) and
John Falsey (1945- )
Date Aired from July 12, 1990, to July 26, 1995
This series was an early example of the “dramedy”—a real-
istic blending of sitcom and dramatic series—but mixed
with a dose of Magical Realism. Its characters were an ex-
ceptionally diverse mix of ages, ethnicities, and sexual ori-
entations. Aging and death were presented as natural parts
of life.
Northern Exposurefirst appeared on the Columbia
Broadcasting System (CBS) network as a summer re-
placement in 1990 and resumed in the spring of
- Well accepted by critics and audiences, it be-
came a regular series in the fall of 1991. For its first
full three seasons, it was among the top twenty shows
in the United States, was honored with two Peabody
Awards, and won three Emmys, two Golden Globes,
and one Directors Guild Award.
The show found Dr. Joel Fleischman (Rob Mor-
row) unexpectedly assigned to the isolated town of
Cicely, Alaska, to fulfill his debt for a medical school
loan. Fleischman, a Jew from Manhattan, is angry
about the assignment and unable to relate to the
town’s 215 residents. The townspeople, however, ac-
cept his churlishness nonchalantly.
The townspeople are not the typical “rubes” com-
monly depicted in shows that mix urban and rural
characters: Maurice Minnifield (Barry Corbin), a
former astronaut, is a wealthy land developer; for-
mer felon Chris Stevens (John Corbett) has started
over in Cicely as an artist and the radio station’s
morning disc jockey, mixing eclectic musical selec-
tions with philosophical musings and readings from
Walt Whitman, Carl Jung, and others; Maggie
O’Connell (Janine Turner), a former debutante
from a prominent family in Grosse Pointe, Michi-
The Nineties in America Northern Exposure 621
Rob Morrow as Dr. Joel Fleischman inNorthern Exposure.(CBS/Landov)