48 Fun Facts About Northern Exposure

Where does Joel Fleischman come from?

New York, and Flushing in Queens to be exact: the clash between his big-city habits and a town where moose wander the main street and nobody has heard of a bagel drives the early episodes.

Who plays Dr. Joel Fleischman?

Rob Morrow was sued by Universal in 1992 for holding out for a better contract, and he left midway through the final season, with his part already cut back by the producers.

Why must Joel work as a doctor in Alaska?

The state paid his medical school tuition in return for his practising there, and much of the first season follows his schemes to wriggle out of the deal.

Joel flies to Alaska expecting a hospital post in which city?

Anchorage turns out to have more doctors than it needs, so the state hands his four-year contract to Cicely, where Maurice Minnifield has been angling for a town physician.

On which network did Northern Exposure air from 1990 to 1995?

CBS moved it from its established Monday slot to Wednesdays in January 1995, the ratings slid, and the network cancelled the show that May.

Northern Exposure began in 1990 as what?

Summer replacement was its first job, eight episodes in all; it came back for seven more the next spring and only then won a regular place in the schedule.

Which duo, also behind St. Elsewhere, created Northern Exposure?

Joshua Brand and John Falsey were not the ones made to pay when a jury found the show's basic idea had come from another writer's unmade script: the studio was.

Which later-famous showrunner ran Northern Exposure's last seasons and has said he never bought its premise?

David Chase has said he did not enjoy the job because he never believed in the show's premise; within four years of its end he had created The Sopranos.

Who plays Maurice Minnifield, the ex-astronaut who owns half of Cicely?

Barry Corbin made Maurice a man of contradictions, a macho ex-astronaut who loves show tunes and a braggart who can be moved to tears, in the role that came to define him.

Maurice owns 15,000 acres around Cicely that he dreams of turning into what?

The Alaskan Riviera, as he pictures it, means resorts, gated communities and casinos, and it is the reason he went to such lengths to get the town a doctor.

In which war did Maurice fly as a fighter pilot before becoming an astronaut?

The Korean War made him a Marine fighter pilot before he joined the astronaut corps, and it catches up with him one Christmas, when a family he never knew he had arrives from Korea.

Who plays bush pilot Maggie O'Connell?

Janine Turner had modelled in her teens and appeared in Dallas, then walked away from Hollywood to study acting before Maggie came along.

Maggie is a debutante originally from which wealthy Michigan suburb?

Grosse Pointe raised her as a debutante, but she threw that over to fly bush planes in Alaska, where she becomes Joel's landlady and, late in the run, the town's mayor.

The 'O'Connell curse' refers to what?

Maggie's boyfriends dying in bizarre ways is what the town calls the curse, a subject she hates: the man she first followed to Alaska lay down for a nap on a glacier and froze.

How is the pilot Rick Pederson killed in Northern Exposure?

Struck by a falling satellite, Rick ends up fused to the wreckage, so his coffin arrives at the funeral built to hold man and satellite together.

What is The Brick?

Holling's bar and restaurant takes its name and its front from a real saloon, the Brick Tavern of 1889, which still pours drinks in the Washington town where the series was shot.

Which Tony-winning Broadway veteran plays Holling Vincoeur?

John Cullum won his Tonys for Shenandoah and On the Twentieth Century, and when the series ended he went back to Broadway, where Urinetown brought him another nomination in his seventies.

Why does Holling fear he will outlive his much younger wife Shelly?

The men in his family live well past 100 and never remarry once their wives die, so although he is some forty years older than Shelly he dreads decades alone as a widower.

Shelly Tambo, a former Miss Northwest Passage, comes from which Canadian city?

Saskatoon's beauty queen came north with Maurice, who meant to marry her, and fell instead for his best friend Holling, a man some forty years her senior.

Who plays philosophising DJ Chris Stevens?

John Corbett spent six years working in a California steel plant until an injury forced him out, and a friend's drama class, tried on a whim, set him on a new course.

Reading which gay poet on air first gets Chris punched and fired by Maurice?

Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass is what he is reading aloud that morning; when he adds a remark about the poet's love life, Maurice storms into the studio, the first of several sackings.

Where did Chris Stevens do most of his reading before arriving in Cicely?

In prison he gave himself the education he had never had, and on the air he pours it back out as philosophy and poetry between the records.

What are the call letters of Cicely's radio station?

KBHR, said on air as 'K-Bear', belongs to Maurice's own communications company, which is how he comes to fire and rehire his morning DJ whenever something on the air offends him.

Ed Chigliak, the aspiring film director, was raised by which Alaska Native people?

The Tlingit took him in as an abandoned baby, and he grew up so devoted to the movies that he trades letters with the directors he idolises, Woody Allen among them.

What is the name of Joel's famously placid, few-worded receptionist?

Marilyn Whirlwind rarely says more than a few words, yet she is the one in charge of that office, steering her fast-talking employer with nothing more than a look.

Ruth-Anne Miller's late-series love interest, fur trapper Walt Kupfer, used to be what?

A Wall Street stockbroker in an earlier life, Walt gave it up for a trapline, and his romance with Ruth-Anne begins when her truck stalls and strands the two of them overnight in the snow.

Which future ER star played Mike Monroe, the hyper-allergic environmentalist nicknamed 'The Bubble Man'?

Anthony Edwards's Mike Monroe came to Alaska to escape the pollution that had made him ill, and sealed himself inside a geodesic dome in the woods.

What is the trade of Adam, the belligerent, badly groomed character played by Adam Arkin?

Master chef turns out to be the plain truth about a man first glimpsed as the local Bigfoot, a barefoot recluse and compulsive liar whose other tall stories nobody can check.

Which Northern Exposure cast member was the only one to win a Primetime Emmy for acting in the series?

Valerie Mahaffey won for playing Eve, the rich hypochondriac wife of the wild man Adam: a recurring guest part, while none of the regular cast ever took an Emmy home.

Who replaced Joel as Cicely's doctor in Northern Exposure's final season?

Phil Capra, a doctor from Los Angeles, arrived with his journalist wife as the writers eased Joel out, but the handover was brief: the series was cancelled within months.

In which Washington town were most of Northern Exposure's exteriors filmed?

Roslyn, an old coal-mining town, put its real main street and tavern on screen, and the writers returned the favour by naming one of Cicely's two founders Roslyn.

Elaine Miles won the part of Marilyn after turning up at the audition only to do what?

Drive her mother there was all she meant to do: the casting agents spotted her in the waiting room, asked her to read, and gave the role to a woman who had never acted before.

In the Christmas episode 'Seoul Mates', the town's pageant honours which bird, said to have brought light to the world?

The raven, in the legend Marilyn tells Joel, tricked a selfish old chief out of the ball of light he kept hidden and carried it up into the sky, so that people no longer lived in darkness.

Ron and Erick, who marry in Northern Exposure's 'I Feel the Earth Move', run what kind of business?

A bed and breakfast, the Sourdough Inn, fills the house they bought from Maurice, who sold only after they took his hostility for hard bargaining and kept raising their offer.

Northern Exposure's 1992 best-drama Emmy ended which show's winning streak?

L.A. Law had won three years running and four times in all, but after Northern Exposure beat it in 1992 it never won the award again.

In the flashback episode 'Cicely', the town's founders, a lesbian couple, turn a lawless settlement into what?

An artists' colony is what Cicely and her partner made of it: they drove into a town ruled by an outlaw, won over its roughnecks, and soon had Franz Kafka visiting to cure his writer's block.

Why did later Northern Exposure DVD sets anger fans in the US?

The original music was replaced with cheaper stand-ins because clearing the songs for DVD cost so much, a problem that kept some other shows of the time off disc altogether.

What do the men of Cicely do in the town's annual spring 'Running of the Bulls'?

Streak through town is all there is to it: the dash down the main street caps the spring fever that sends Cicely a little mad each year as it waits for the ice to break.

Which Northern Exposure cast member later ran a crowdfunding campaign to make new episodes?

Darren E. Burrows, the show's Ed, tried to raise the money for new episodes from fans, before a network announced a revival of its own in 2018.

From which US state does DJ Chris Stevens hail?

West Virginia is where the actor who plays him grew up too, and it follows Chris north when two brothers arrive from there to carry on a family feud that goes back generations.

Who plays Shelly Tambo, the teenage waitress who marries Holling?

Cynthia Geary was Emmy-nominated as Shelly, the teenage beauty queen who throws over a millionaire astronaut for a barman some forty years her senior.

Who plays Ruth-Anne Miller, the level-headed owner of Cicely's general store?

Peg Phillips had worked as an accountant and only turned to acting full-time at 66; Ruth-Anne was meant to be an occasional character and grew into a regular.

Which Canadian actor plays Leonard Quinhagak, the local shaman and Marilyn's cousin?

Graham Greene came to the part from an Oscar nomination for Dances with Wolves, playing a traditional healer who shadows Joel to learn about modern medicine and soon disagrees with him over a patient.

Which actress played Michelle, reporter wife of the doctor who replaced Joel in season six?

Michelle works for the newspaper owned by Maurice; her husband came up from Los Angeles.

In 'Kaddish for Uncle Manny', what does Cicely search Alaska for so that Joel can mourn?

Nine other Jews would make up the ten needed to say the prayer; the town duly brings strangers in, but Joel feels no bond with them and decides to mourn among his friends in Cicely instead.

Which Fox sitcom beat Northern Exposure to US prime time's first same-sex wedding, in October 1991?

Roc got there with 'Can't Help Loving That Man', in which Richard Roundtree, the star of Shaft, plays the hero's uncle, who comes out to the family and marries his partner.

Whose captive herd supplied the moose seen in the opening titles?

The crew fenced off the town of Roslyn, set him loose and lured him around with food to shoot the sequence.

Which show won the best-drama Golden Globe just before Northern Exposure?

Twin Peaks won at the 1991 ceremony and Northern Exposure at the next two, so three years running the award went to a drama about a small town in America's far north-west.