The endless accretion of Pokemon items reminds somehow of D&D books and supplements and figurines...and other such exploits...ER the pilot wasn't really a back-door pilot...it was, however, an expensive one, with the idea that this would be most fast-paced medical drama yet seen on US tv...Spielberg had already failed NBC big-time as a producer, much as he fails Fox these days, with such dismal fare as AMAZING STORIES (despite renting that title giving the D&D folks a good reason/cash influx to keep publishing that pioneering sf magazine for another decade), but ER was more Michael Crichton's baby from jump, and he had a good cinematic but little tv record thus far. Bringing back Julianna Margulies was akin to bringing back Hill and Renko, the patrol cops killed in the original version of the HILL STREET BLUES pilot...NBC paid attention to focus groups. And they were right, in both cases. HOMICIDE: LIFE IN THE STREETS was an odd fit with Lifetime, and they thought so too, given the graveyard shift they were given almost immediately...but it was a series with more significant roles for women cops and lawyers than most, if not quit CAGNEY AND LACEY in that regard...

ha@!

http://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/2012/01/best-political-drama-television.html To quote myself: Well, [my correspondent], no offense, but not only does THE WEST WING have only the slightest resemblance to politics and governance as they are performed, but it also portrays them as the participants want you to see them...which is genuinely pernicious. Wish-fulfillment fantasy is Really not optimal in this arena.

Not having seen more than a minute of POKEMON nor any in a decade or so, I'm still going to guess that POKEMON is less misogynist than SEX AND THE CITY, or at least less a Hwodd gay man's idea of what women are (not necessarily more or less distorted than a Hwood straight man's idea of what women are).