On 19 September 1994, NBC broadcast the ER pilot “24 Hours”: nearly two hours on a Monday night, to about 23.8 million viewers. It was the only episode of the series scheduled on a Monday; from 22 September it moved to Thursdays at 10 p.m. on the Must See TV block.

The action followed a day in the emergency department of Chicago’s fictional County General, inspired by Cook County Hospital. Pace, technical dialogue and a camera moving through crowded corridors set it apart from slower medical dramas that had come before.

The series was created by physician and writer Michael Crichton, from a screenplay begun years earlier (the working version is often dated 1974). Steven Spielberg and Amblin Television helped bring it to television, with Warner Bros. Television.

The original cast included Anthony Edwards, George Clooney, Sherry Stringfield, Eriq La Salle, Noah Wyle and Julianna Margulies. Characters were both doctors under pressure and people with their own fractures. The show ran 15 seasons and 331 episodes, until 2 April 2009.

Romanian titles have swung between “ER”, “Urgențe” and “Spitalul de urgență”, depending on channel and period; the American title remains the reference. The 32nd anniversary is about a television format, not a real hospital.

The Television Academy keeps the pilot’s history. NBC promotional stills are protected; today’s photograph is an archive exterior of Cook County Hospital, not a frame from the series.

Image: Cook County Hospital, Chicago / bmMAK / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. A historic exterior, not an NBC still from ER. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: ER at 30: The Oral History of Making the Pilot | Television Academy; ER | Television Academy.