From: sharonc@meaddata.com (Sharon Crichton)
Subject: alt.tv.northern-exp Frequently Asked Questions
Followup-To: alt.tv.northern-exp
Organization: Mead Data Central, Dayton OH
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 12:30:46 GMT
Reply-To: sharonc@meaddata.com

Archive-name: northern-exposure-faq
Last modified: 1992/09/27

Frequently Asked Questions List for "Northern Exposure"
and the Usenet newsgroup alt.tv.northern-exp

Guarantees cannot be made for the accuracy of any of the information in
this document. If you wish to flame me for my lack of knowledge, please
do so only if you can also provide me with the correct information. I have
tried not to influence the information in this document with my own
opinions, but I can't guarantee that I've been entirely successful.

Two companion documents to the FAQ are the Northern Exposure Episode Guide
and the Northern Exposure Music Guide. Both are published by Andy Bates
(bates@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov), usually in rec.arts.tv. Hopefully he will
start posting them as well to alt.tv.northern-exp.

Abbreviations used in this document:
NX = Northern Exposure

Table of Contents:

I. What is NX?

II. Characters and Their Histories
 A. Who played the flying man?
 B. Characters in episode "Cicely"

III. Music Used in NX
 A. Toy Cows

IV. Literature Used in NX

V. Various Miscellaneous Stuff
 A. How did the town of Cicely get its name?
 B. Where is NX filmed?
 C. The fling thing
 D. How have the various boyfriends of Maggie O'Connell met their deaths?
 E. "Local Hero", "Going to Extremes," "Doc Hollywood," and "Twin Peaks"
 F. Why are there no children in the show?
 G. How long has Joel been in Cicely?
 H. Were Cicely and Roslyn lesbians?

---------------------------------------------------------

I. What is Northern Exposure?

NX is a television show that airs on the CBS television network
at 10:00pm EST/EDT on Monday. It was originally a summer replacement show
from 1990 which developed a large following, and was eventually picked
up as a regular network show. The show was created by Joshua Brand and John
Falsey, who were also the principle forces behind "St. Elsewhere."

NX is essentially the story of Joel Fleischman, a New York City
raised Jewish internist who financed his medical education through a
scholarship from the state of Alaska. Unfortunately, the terms of this
scholarship require Joel to repay it by serving as a doctor in Alaska for
four years. Because there were no openings in Anchorage, Joel was sent to
the town of Cicely ("on the cusp of the new Alaskan Riviera") to serve his
term. The show originally centered around Joel and his reaction to the
inhabitants of the town, but has branched out in later episodes to
concentrate more on the other citizens.

The show is already picking up an international following. John Cohen
(pacific@online.com) says that NX is now finding its way onto the tv sets
in other courtries. He has friends from London who watch it and they say
the show is developing a good following in the U.K.

II. Characters and Their Histories

Main characters:

Joel Fleischman (actor: Rob Morrow)

A New York City raised doctor fulfilling the terms of his medical
scholarship ($125,000 to attend Columbia University) by serving four years
as general practitioner in the town of Cicely, Alaska. Joel is the only
Jewish person in the entire Borough of Arrowhead County, Alaska.

Maggie O'Connell (Janine Turner)

A bush pilot who owns the cabin that Joel rents, she is constantly at
odds with Fleischman (rarely do they call each other by their first names).
Maggie was raised in Grosse Point, MI and is the daughter of the youngest
CEO in automotive history ("Do you remember the hatchback? That's my Dad.")

Maurice Minnifield (Barry Corbin)

Ex-astrounaut with a family fortune to guard and prosper by, Maurice has
big plans for the town of Cicely. The local radio station, KBHR (K-Bear
57 AM), is the flagship of the Minnifield communications network, and is
almost solely run off the extensive music collection of Maurice (including
a fabulous collection of show tunes). Maurice also owns the local newspaper
and 15,00 "acres of opportunity."

Chris Stevens (John Corbett) (alias: Chris in the Morning)

A free-spirit who can converse on the philosophies of Carl Jung and
theoretical physics, as well as philosophize on any topic that might come
to mind, Chris is the only DJ at KBHR. He began acquiring his vast wealth
of knowledge when he spent time in prison in West Virginia, which is why
he can no longer vote in any U.S. election. Chris also doubles as the
town's minister, being ordained after answering an ad in the back of
"Rolling Stone"

Ed Chigliak (Darren E. Burrows)

Ed is a half-native Alaskan who was raised by one of the local tribes when
his parents abandoned him. Ed wants to be a film director, and has already
started pen-pal correspondences with Martin Scorcese, Steven Spielberg, and
Woody Allen. Ed works for Maurice and Ruth-Anne, and has an IQ of 180.

Ruth-Anne Miller (Peg Phillips)

The owner of the general store in town, Ruth-Anne left the lower 48 when
she was 60 years old with an old station wagon, all her household
possessions she could carry, and her cats to make a new life in Alaska.
Regretably, one of her children is an investment banker.

Holling Vincoeur (John Cullum)

The owner of one of the local bars, The Brick, Holling is an ex-trapper
and hunter who swore off killing. Holling and Maurice and old and dear
friends, but once were mortal enemies over the love of a woman. Holling
does not want to marry any woman, however-- his family history of long
life spans leads him to believe that he would outlive any woman that he
marries, so he is content to live with and love Shelly, but not marry her.
Holling is also a direct male-line descendant of French aristocracy.

Shelly Tambo (Cynthia Geary)

Shelly is the woman over whom Maurice and Holling wanted to kill each
other. A former Miss Northwest-Passage, Shelly was came to Cicely to marry
Maurice. But once she met Holling, she left Maurice to be with him (Holling
is over 60 years old, but Shelly is just barely into her twenties).

Marilyn Whirlwind (Elaine Miles)

Joel's receptionist, who raises ostriches at her farm.
Character note: Elaine got the part when she accompanied her mother to the
audition. The producers and director liked her timing and sense of humor
better.

Recurring characters:

Adam (Adam Arkin)

The world's worst pathological liar (as far as Joel is concerned), Adam is
a gourmet chef who was originally thought to be the Cicely version of
Bigfoot. He pops up occasionally to cause havoc in Joel's life. Soon to be
a father.

Eve (Valerie Mahaffey, winner of a Best Supporting Actress Emmy)

Adam's wife, also the heiress to a tungsten fortune, she is expecting
their first child. She is also the world's champion hypochondriac and once
chained Joel to her cabin so that she could have a doctor in-house
round-the-clock.

Bernard Stevens (Richard Cummings, Jr.)

Chris' African-American half-brother. Bernard and Chris are psychically
connected-- they discovered each other when they both had the same vision
of a sculpture about the Aurora Borealis. They often share the same dreams
and thoughts. Their mutual father was a travellin' man who just happened
to have two families.

Sgt. Barbara Semanski (Diane Delano)

A state trooper who shares the mutual hots for Maurice, but who cannot
sustain a relationship with him because of his disregard for the law (tax
law, that is).

Elaine

Joel's ex-fiance'-- she left Joel to marry an older man who died shortly
after their marriage. She and Joel have since reconciled their relationship
and the unfortunate way that it ended.

Dave

Cook at The Brick, he takes a lot of abuse from Adam over his style of
cooking (bacon is not panchetta (sp?))

Morty (Morty the Moose)

Morty is a part of a captive moose herd maintained at a Washington State
Univ. research station. Although WSU was somewhat reluctant, at first, to
lend Morty for such blatently exploitative purposes, they finally relented
and the rest is history.


A. Who played the flying man in the episode involving the circus coming to
Cicely?

The flying man was played by Bill Irwin, who has appeared with the Pickle
Family Circus. He was also in the movie "Popeye," starring Robin Williams
and Shelly Duvall, and has had 2 Broadway shows (the first, "The Regard of
Flight", has been recorded and broadcast on PBS). He was also the recipient
of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Award.


B. Characters in "Cicely" (and their modern day equivalents)

Ned Svenborg = Ed
Mace Mobrey  = Maurice
Kit          = Chris
Sally        = Shelly
Abe          = Holling
Mary O'Keefe = Maggie
Franz Kafka  = Joel
Nurse        = Marilyn
Rhoda        = Ruth-Anne
(woman at meeting)


III. Music Used in NX

Andy Bates has a music guide for the show-- hopefully he can be prevailed
upon to post the guide to this group.

There has been a NX CD released that has a selection of pieces that have
been played on the show. Consult the music guide if you want to know which pieces were played in which episodes. The CD includes:

1.  Theme from Northern Exposure
    Performed by David Schwartz

2.  Jolie Louise
    Performed by Daniel Lanois

3.  Hip Hug-Her
    Performed by Booker T. and the MG's

4.  At Last
    Performed by Etta James

5.  Everybody Be Yoself
    Performed by Chic Street Man

6.  Alaskan Nights
    Performed by David Schwartz

7.  Don Quichotte
    Performed by Magazine 60

8.  When I Grow Too Old to Dream
    Performed by Nat "King" Cole and His Trio

9.  Emabhaceni
    Performed by Miriam Makeba

10. Gimme Three Steps
    Performed by Lynyrd Skynyrd

11. Bailero from Chants d'Auvergne
    Performed by Frederica Von Stade
    with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
    Conducted by Antonio de Almeda

12. Medley:
    A Funeral in My Brain
    Woody the Indian
    The Tellakutans
    Performed by David Schwartz

It does not include "Toy Cows in Africa" or "Carribean Blue" (by Enya,
from her album "Shepherd's Moons").


A. Toy Cows

The song that everyone calls "Toy Cows in Africa" is _probably_ by Miriam
Makeba. It is NOT by _They_Might_Be_Giants_ (who, BTW, do some wonderful
stuff that might be fun to hear on NX). It is not on the NX CD. We can't
even be sure of the name of the song, since there is no definitive
evidence on the artist who performed it.


IV. Literature Used in NX

There was a syndicated article that appeared in the New York Times and
other various newspapers around the U.S. that started to touch on the
list of books that Chris has quoted/read on the air.

        Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Renascence and Other Poems"
        Joseph Campbell, "Power of Myth"
        Shakespeare, the complete works
        Stephen Hawking, "A Brief Histor of Time"
        Hegel, "Early Technological Writings"
        Kierkegaard, "Sickness Unto Death"
        Emmanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason"
        Walt Whitman, the complete works
        Nietzsche, "Logic," and "The Metaphysics of Morals"
        Tolstoy, "War and Peace"
        Maurice Sendak, "Where the Wild Things Are"
        Baudelaire, "Flowers of Evil" (in translation, Chris does
                not read French)
        "The Papers of Thomas Jefferson"
        Alexis do Tocqueville, the complete works

Additions that were not in the NYT article:

        Jack London, "Call of the Wild"


V. Various Miscellaneous Stuff

A. How did the town of Cicely get its name?

Cicely was founded, but nameless (and lawless) until two women, Cicely and
Roslyn, came to town to form a utopian society. For more details, see
the episode "Cicely" which tells the history of the two women and the
society. For those people who haven't seen the show, the town is named
after Cicely, due to her selfless death to protect Roslyn.


B. Where is NX filmed?

NX is filmed in the town of Roslyn, Washington. There really is a
Roslyn('s) Cafe', a bar where The Brick is (but the inside looks nothing
like The Brick), and a store where Ruth-Anne's general store is located.
Word from the people who have visited is that the local people are very
excited about the show and generally do not mind non-nosy tourists
visiting. There are certain "hot" sets that you cannot enter, but
generally the whole town is very open and friendly. Most people who post
articles about their visits have not been able to locate the church where
the wedding of Adam and Eve took place, so it may not be in the area.
Exterior shots are filmed during mid-week. Interior shots are filmed in a
warehouse/soundstage in Redmond, Washington, and are not open to the
public (closed sets).


C. The fling thing

That thing is called a trebuchet. For more information, I quote a post by
hank@waffle.sns.com  (hankdtank):

""Car & Driver" did a whole article on the 'trebuchet.'  It was called
"Seige the Day."  Two guys in England built a replica and fling toilets
filled with gasoline and small cars and people.  They thought that they
might sell a few of these, but at the time of the article, they had only
sold one-- to NX.  If you want one, they only cost $18,000.00."

Some references/cites:
  Car & Driver, June 1992
  "All Things Considered", National Public Radio, Jan. 2 1992.
  The Wall Street Journal, July 30, 1991

If you want a full set of articles, you might look these up on the Nexis
on-line news service. Try the search "trebuchet" in the file nexis;currnt
and yes, this is a shameless plug for my employer. How do you think I
found the exact references for this FAQ? :-)


D. How have the various boyfriends of Maggie O'Connell met their deaths?

This is known as the curse of Maggie O'Connell-- every serious boyfriend
she has ever had has died in some gruesome accident. The latest was Rick
Pederson, who was played by Grant Goodeve in the first season (until his
untimely demise).  Until her house burned down, Maggie had small shrines
to each boyfriend on her mantel.

	Harry ---- potato salad at a picnic

	Bruce ---- victim of a terrible fishing accident

	Glenn ---- took a wrong turn in his Volvo onto a missile test site

	Dave ---- fell asleep on a glacier and froze to death

	Rick ---- hit by a satellite

This is from the eulogy given at Rick's funeral by Chris in the episode
"Slow Dance"


E. "Local Hero," "Going to Extremes," "Doc Hollywood," and "Twin Peaks"

"Local Hero" is a film by Scottish director Bill Forsythe. In Local Hero,
an upwardly-mobile young professional (oilman) goes to a remote part of
the world (northern Scotland) where he is initially annoyed by the lack
of modern conveniences but eventually enchanted with the local culture.
At one point a old Russian town friend stumbles into the scene, and the
main character deals with a kind, elderly store-keeper woman.

"Going to Extremes" is another Brand/Falsey creation. It has been described
as "St. Elsewhere" on the sand with characters from NX thrown in.
Comparisons to NX are natural-- doctors thrown into a foreign culture with
lots of colorful local characters. It is currently being shown Tuesday at
10:00pm EDT/EST on the ABC television network.

"Doc Hollywood" is a movie that was released in the summer of 1991. It
stars Michael J. Fox as a doctor, who while travelling to Beverly Hills
to begin a career as a plastic surgeon, ends up stuck in the small town
of Grady, trying to pay off a debt by filling in as the town doctor. No
one can be certain which came first: NX or "Doc Hollywood." Rumor has it
that the script for DH had been floating around Hollywood for years, but
NX was created by Brand and Falsey after talking to a doctor friend of
theirs.

A DH/NX connection is that Roberts Blossom played both the judge who
sentenced Fox's character (Ben Stone) to community service in DH, and
the elder Ned Svenborg in the NX episode "Cicely."

"Twin Peaks" has also been compared to NX. TP was also filmed in the state
of Washington (in Snoqualmie) and took place in a town filled with
colorful characters. But while TP was mainly about a series of bad events
in an generally evil place, NX is mainly about a series of slightly odd
events in a generally nice place (this is entirely the FAQ's author's
opinion, who has seen both shows and infinitely prefers NX over TP).

NX has done an homage to TP. There was an episode where the characters
were all gathered by a scenic waterfall (similar to the falls in TP) and
there was some vague TP-type music playing in the background.


F. Why are there no children in the show?

Well, a lot of people who subscribe to this newsgroup are pretty glad
there aren't any main characters who are under 18 years of age. Others
believe that children are missing and should be included. There have been
children in certain episodes; there were children in Ed's film "Cicely,"
there were children around during the visit by the circus, and there were
children at the wedding. But if you think about the lack of children,
consider that all of the main characters are single and highly independent,
so the inclusion of any children would be against the characters as drawn
so far in the show.

G. How long has Joel been in Cicely?

Joel's contract requires four years of service to the state of Alaska. It
is inconclusive as to how much actual calendar time has passed (see the
rerun episodes of "MASH" for a comparison to this situation). The only
episode that can be used to gauge calendar time is the one where Joel
renews his subscription to "The New Yorker" and states the exact amount of
time he has left to serve.


H. Were Cicely and Roslyn lesbians?

Yes. Maurice has asked Chris to downplay this part of their town's history.
It is also aluded to in the premiere episode, where Maurice tries to tell
Joel that, despite what other people will tell him, they were just good
friends. It is not stated but alluded to in "Cicely" during the
conversation between Mary O'Keefe and Roslyn about alternatives to men.


Much thanks to the following people for helping to edit this document, and
helped with contributions to this document:

Andy Bates <bates@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov>,
hankdtank <hank@waffle.sns.com>,
Dan Goldstein <dang@cicero.uchicago.edu>,
Tim Pierce <twpierce@unix.amherst.edu>,
Melissa Brown <MMB3@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>,
Greg Bole <BOLE@hmivax.humgen.upenn.edu>,
George Mitchell <george@tessi.com>,
Howard Gershen <howard@boxhill.com>,
Larry J Lennhoff <bml@Athena.MIT.EDU>,
Erin Sasaki <usagi@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>,
Douglas J Renze <drenze@icaen.uiowa.edu>,
Matt Mccoy <matt@ms.uky.edu>,
John Cohen <pacific@online.com>,
Evan Rosser <ejr@wam.umd.edu>,
Brian Fristensky <frist@ccu.umanitoba.ca>,
John Cohen <pacific@online.com>,



Copyright (c) 1992 by Sharon Crichton. That's all.

-- 
Sharon Crichton         *****************   Mead Data Central
sharonc@meaddata.com    **HAPPY! HAPPY!**   P.O. Box 933
uunet!meaddata!sharonc  **  JOY! JOY!  **   Dayton, OH 45401
                        *****************   FAX: (513) 865-1655
Organization: Senior, Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA