For Better or Werts : TV Worth Watching

TV WORTH BUYING: 10 seasons of 'ER'

As ER concludes its 15-season run, you can grab the first 10 seasons as Thursday's deal of the day at Amazon. The bundled DVD season sets are on sale for just $163, down from the usual $300, for one day only, at this link.

(The show's 11th season will be released on DVD July 14.)

Watching these trendsetting seasons reminds us why ER was once a 40-share show, as in 40 percent of all homes using TV being tuned to NBC's Thursday night smash. (A top-rated show today snares less than half that.)

ER may well be TV's last scripted mainstream blockbuster, since broad-based audiences today seem to materialize only around live "reality" reveals like American Idol.

Here's the ER tribute I wrote for Newsday.

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Diane Werts has been glued to the tube since she can remember, growing up in a household where the TV came on first thing in the morning and stayed on till bedtime and beyond. She worked for the USA Film Festival, then for The Dallas Morning News writing about everything from Shakespeare to macrame art to rock music (and has the hearing loss to prove it). She moved to New York's Newsday to edit their glossy TV magazine, then returned to writing about television, specializing in its stranger permutations. She's a past president of the Television Critics Association.

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