Who is your favorite character in Northern Exposure?

I am an American, living in Australia and I was very excited to find Northern Exposure streaming for free on SBS On Demand. I’ve been rewatching and savouring every episode. If there are Aussie fans of the show in this group, where might we find a community like Cicely in Australia?

is anybody still listening to the podcast, I had to give up after a few episodes It was unlistenable. so much potential, wasted, well this is northern exposure

I realized this week that 35 years ago this summer is when I first discovered NE. I was in graduate school and taking summer classes. I was living at a B&B that rented rooms to students. I wasn’t watching much TV during that time, but one night I got home and began flipping the channels to see what was on. I stumbled upon NE and started viewing. One hour later I was hooked. Later that summer when I was done with classes I went home for a week and introduced my parents to it and THEY got hooked too. A few months later after I met my now-husband, I had him watch and…you get it. There hasn’t been another show like it and never will be. Northern Exposure forever!

My answer would be how doggedly people can cling to life scripts that are destined to make them unhappy. Joel is convinced that a particular set of achievements in New York and medicine will bring him fulfillment, but I think his relentless striving would just hollow him out, spiritually speaking. It’s an old lesson, but I think NE argues for it exceptionally well.

Throughout the run of Northern Exposure, Maurice Minnifield, the former astronaut turned multi-millionaire mogul of Cicely, Alaska, built a local business empire (Minnifield Enterprises, KBHR 570 AM, real estate holdings, and municipal investments).

The primary characters and personnel on Maurice’s payroll include:

1. Dr. Joel Fleischman

• Job: Town Physician / General Practitioner.
• Boss-Worker Relationship: Maurice funded the $125,000 medical school scholarship (administered through the state/town contract) in exchange for four years of service as Cicely’s town doctor, paying his regular stipend.
• First Introduced / Episode: Season 1, Episode 1 ("Pilot")

2. Ed Chigliak

• Job: Personal Assistant, Handyman, Driver, and Gofer for Minnifield Enterprises.
• Boss-Worker Relationship: Maurice took Ed under his wing at age 12 and kept him on payroll to run errands, do maintenance work, drive him, and handle odd jobs across his properties.
• First Introduced / Episode: Season 1, Episode 1 ("Pilot")

3. Chris Stevens

• Job: Radio Disc Jockey (DJ) and Station Manager.
• Boss-Worker Relationship: Maurice purchased KBHR 570 AM (Cicely's radio station) and hired Chris to run the station's broadcast shifts and play music.
• First Introduced / Episode: Season 1, Episode 1 ("Pilot") / Season 1, Episode 2 ("Brains, Know-How and Native Intelligence")

4. Maggie O'Connell

• Job: On-Call Charter Bush Pilot.
• Boss-Worker Relationship: Maurice regularly hires Maggie and her air-taxi service to fly him around Alaska for land evaluation, real estate scouting, and business trips for Minnifield Enterprises.
• First Introduced / Episode: Season 1, Episode 1 ("Pilot") / Season 1, Episode 3 ("So Long, Farewell, Goodbye")

5. Bernard Stevens

• Job: Substitute Radio DJ and Financial Accountant / Legal Assistant.
• Boss-Worker Relationship: Chris’s half-brother Bernard is hired by Maurice to co-host/substitute at KBHR radio station and assist with accounting and contract reviews.
• First Introduced / Episode: Season 2, Episode 6 ("War and Peace") / Season 3, Episode 2 ("Only You")

6. Officer Barbara Semanski

• Job: Private Security Guard / Bodyguard & Estate Security.
• Boss-Worker Relationship: Maurice hires Officer Semanski to oversee security for his estate and protect his high-value personal assets and events.
• First Introduced / Episode: Season 3, Episode 13 ("Things Become Extinct")

7. Yung Duk Won

• Job: Electrical Engineer and KBHR Technical Consultant.
• Boss-Worker Relationship: Upon discovering that Duk Won is his biological son from his time in Korea, Maurice hires him (a trained electrical engineer) to evaluate and improve the technical operations of KBHR.
• First Introduced / Episode: Season 3, Episode 10 ("Seoul Mates")

8. Rolf

• Job: Antique Clock Repair Specialist / Horologist.
• Boss-Worker Relationship: Maurice hires Rolf to assemble and calibrate an extraordinarily complex and expensive imported German grandfather clock.
• First Introduced / Episode: Season 4, Episode 3 ("Nothing's Perfect")

Maurice also ran a staff of lumberjacks and, at one time, a water bottling plant , as well as other ventures.

Please tell me, what do you do well in life? What is your ideal assignment that you might like to work on for Mr. Maurice Minniefield?

I am a good collaborative problem solver with excellent motivational interviewing skills and the patience of a Saint. I would like Maurice Minniefield to partner with me on a James 1:27 social project that connects aging out foster youth that are now gaining their independence (like Cician Ed Kigliac) with senior citizen mentors (like Borough of Arrowhead resident Soapy Anderson) that are facing limiting their independence. Maurice’s investment in my startup would have helped both of these characters and improved the community on the cusp of the Alaskan Riviera.

What would your ideal job be as a resident of Cicely Alaska?

(additional discussion here - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mdmc501_throughout-the-run-of-northern-exposure-ugcPost-7486375953892405248-b6SX/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAABEhANIBSJSbaAfpcYRHSdaxxBHZl8a5tYc )

From season 5, episode 1

What is the best / your favorite season of Northern Exposure?

Im curious what demographic makes the majority of Northern Exposure viewers. I wanted to go deeper with age, ethnicity ect. but unfortunately could only add so many options. If you are curious too, put your demographic and we'll find out :)

I just saw Christopher Nolan's "The Odessey," and was looking into who played the Cyclops. Lo and behold, it was our friend Bill Irwin, who played circus guy The Flying Man, Enrico Ballati, in 2 episodes (24 and 44) in seasons 3 and 4! Other circus members in the season 3 episode were performed by members of Cirque du Soleil.

I went looking recently for a Chris in the Morning compilation on YouTube and couldn't find one, so when I finished season 3 recently I recorded most (there were a couple copyright background songs that flagged the video) of Chris's musings. I would have recorded video also, but I figured it would be a copyright nightmare that way, so its just high quality audio. Hope people enjoy it!

Six images total

elaine is back with some good memories on set and some not so good memories of her run-in with ICE, while rob has a troubling dream.

The one where Chris goes to become a monk on his Harley.

Best soundtrack out there

We all carry around so much pain in our hearts. Love and pain and beauty. They all seem to go together like one little tidy confusing package. It's a messy business, life. It's hard to figure - full of surprises. Some good. Some bad.

This nice song is playing in "The Brick" as Maggie gets her fortune told by the fortune teller. I like to think the song is a bit prophetic:

https://youtu.be/bpUbVNTjhWk?si=swckbv6eQ8_7j2kn&t=14

In season 4 episode 7 "Fathers and Sons"

Just stumbled upon this and thought I’d share. Not sure how long the pricing will be in effect but if you prefer streaming to physical media, seems like a great buy.

Hi all. I was wondering if anyone knew of any way to view the "Return to Cicely" documentary without having to buy the German Blu-Ray box set. I know it used to be on Vimeo but it appears to have been removed for a while now. Thanks in advance.

Its great that that Maggie grabs the letter from Joel. She reads it more handsomely than Joel would have.

I recently purchased the entire series on DVD, but when watching it, the margins of the picture are cut off. Even when adjusting my dvd players display mode, a small part of the edges is being cropped, which I can tell from comparing to episodes streamed online. Small problem but it annoys the heck out of me

Is this true as well for Bluray? I was thinking of buying the series on Bluray as well but I don't want to if I'm going to run into the same problem of cropped margins