I Love a Good Emergency!
Dec. 24th, 2025 03:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labingiThe 1970’s TV show Emergency! is a treasure. If you want a reminder that society can be decent and humane, (re)discover it today. Emergency! follows the adventures of two paramedics (Roy and John) and the firefighters and hospital staff they work with. It’s low on plot, high on the specifics of various rescues and medical procedures, interspersed with human interest and light comedy. Though it is sometimes pulse-pounding, things almost always turn out okay and interpersonal conflicts are almost always slight. It’s a feel-good show about competent people doing their jobs with professionalism and compassion.
Below the cut are three things I especially like about Emergency! No spoilers to speak of; there’s not much to “spoil.”
It Models Kindness and Professionalism
The show was made in cooperation with the LA Fire Department to promote the then-new field of paramedics, and its sense of moral responsibility to society comes through powerfully. I can’t personally speak to how accurate the show is, but aside from some time compression (ex. lab results instantly available), it feels quite realistic to me. There is a procedure for going out on calls, assessing the situation, providing first aid, calling in to the hospital for instructions, etc. Everyone follows these procedures consistently and calmly. The calmness, in particular, really stands out. Sometimes Roy and John and their colleagues are in genuinely dangerous situations where people’s lives hang in the balance, and they just get on with it, step-by-step until the emergency is over.
(Fun fact: one of the Station 51 crew was played by a real fireman because they needed someone qualified to drive the fire engine. Shout out to the adequate acting skills and exemplary driving of the perfectly named Mike Stoker! This is both the actor and character’s name.)
Everyone also generally comports themselves with a caring, calming demeanor. (Occasionally, this slips as part of a particular plot point, usually on the hospital side of the action, but it’s quite rare.) These are people I would want to be rescued by. They exude competence and comfort, including emotional restraint in the face of bad behavior. In one episode, for example, John is (not seriously) injured in responding to a call that turns out to be a prank. While the kids responsible are walked off by the police, presumably to have their parents called and get a stern talking to, no one shows anger; it’s just all taken in stride. I do recognize that the 1970s was never exactly like this, but I wish I lived in this world!
It’s a Great Model of Non-Toxic Masculinity
This is related to point one but worth discussing on its own. This is a 1970s show with sharply defined, fairly traditional gender roles. (All the emergency responders are men.) It is not great at writing women, apart from nurse Dixie, who is amazing in every way. Most others are pretty stereotypical 1970s fare, usually not painful, just underdeveloped.
The men, however, exemplify non-toxic masculinity. They convey a sense of genuine confidence with nothing to prove. They put safety first; they don’t take stupid risks. If they have to climb a dangerous tower, they do it slowly and methodically with all the prescribed safety equipment. And while they do plenty of traditionally masculine dangerous feats, they also do a lot of traditionally feminine care work, sometimes even doing stuff like holding another man’s head in their lap (gasp). They also take good care of each other. For example, in the episode mentioned above where John is injured, Roy helps him climb back down the ladder and John accepts his help, all completely straightforwardly. And since they are part of a firefighting team on multiday shifts, they also do a lot of cooking and cleaning.
Further, though it might be a minimum expectation for today (I hope), for a show from the ‘70’s, I’m also impressed that there is no flirtation in the midst of rescue work, not even when rescuing a sexy girl. Sometimes, there may be flirting later, say as she’s getting out of the hospital, but on the job, everything is professional. In comparison to contemporaneous shows, such as Starsky and Hutch, I think that was pretty rare, and it shows a lot of respect for women and a lot of respect for the seriousness of the work first responders do.
Finally, there’s no expectation that people should always look sexy. These guys are nice looking but don’t look like they spend hours a day at the gym. Their uniforms are functional, not gorgeously tailored, and their physical comportment is not showy but matter-of-fact.
In our society today, with all the misogynistic vitriol of men’s rights culture and “alphas,” and so on, Emergency! provides good role modeling, notwithstanding occasional ‘70’s gender politics. I kind of want to show it to teenage boys (with contextualization of the ‘70’s gender politics, of course).
It’s Got Surprisingly Decent Native American Representation
Disclaimer: I’m white, so this is all a white settler’s take.
I don’t know whether it was part of the initial concept or an accident of casting (I suspect the latter), but one of the leads, John, is Native American. This is so unstressed that for quite a while I assumed that, though the actor is Native American, the character was supposed to be white; he could pass. But the show actually does identify John as having Native American ancestry. As I write this, I’ve seen about half the show and, to date, it’s had a couple of episodes that mention his ancestry in passing and one that actually delves into it. That episode is impressive (certainly by 1970’s standards). Over twenty years before the publication of Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Decolonizing Methodologies, it shows John protesting anthropological “studies” of Native Americans as both objectifying and a misuse of funds that would be better spent on directly serving the needs of people living on reservations. This is a deep cut into comparatively subtle forms of racism still rarely discussed in mainstream culture today.
Nonetheless, 99% of the time, John’s race/ethnicity are not alluded to, which in United States culture means he is essentially written as “white” (the “invisible” race). That’s not ideal, but if I had to choose between a Native American stereotype and a well-developed, individualized Native American character with close to zero reference to that ancestry, I’d choose the latter. Of the two, it feels much less insulting and less unrealistic. (The actor, Randolph Mantooth, has said he eschewed Native characters early in his career to avoid being typecast in stereotypical roles, and it appears he was successful.)
Native Americans, to this day, generally get either no representation or poor representation in stories that aren’t explicitly about Native people and their oppressions. Consider Star Trek, that founding text of diverse representation: in almost sixty years, I cannot think of any major, recurrent Native American character besides Chakotay, who is famously an example of stereotypical representation. All in all, even by 21st-century standards, John is a breath of fresh air for me as far representation goes. That may seem like a low bar, but US media has set the bar pretty low. In any case, it’s something I appreciate about Emergency!
Bonus Points: Dixie
Emergency! is not the show I’d choose to watch for exceptionally well-written women, in general, but Dixie, the only female character in the main cast, is really wonderful. She is a highly competent nurse and mature, thoughtful person, not especially young and not done up to be especially gorgeous. She also a genuinely interesting friendship with the lead doctor, who some writer decided to name “Kelly Brackett.” As far as I can make out, they have—or have had—what I’d call a sexual friendship. They are certainly friends first and foremost and don’t seem to be “in a relationship,” but early in the series, they do seem to crash at each other’s houses sometimes, and it’s just all lovely and straightforward.
All in all, I highly recommend this show as an inoculation against the general atmosphere of our current angry and desperate society. Though outdated in some ways, it’s aspirational in others and comforting at a moment when we all need a bit more comfort.
Below the cut are three things I especially like about Emergency! No spoilers to speak of; there’s not much to “spoil.”
It Models Kindness and Professionalism
The show was made in cooperation with the LA Fire Department to promote the then-new field of paramedics, and its sense of moral responsibility to society comes through powerfully. I can’t personally speak to how accurate the show is, but aside from some time compression (ex. lab results instantly available), it feels quite realistic to me. There is a procedure for going out on calls, assessing the situation, providing first aid, calling in to the hospital for instructions, etc. Everyone follows these procedures consistently and calmly. The calmness, in particular, really stands out. Sometimes Roy and John and their colleagues are in genuinely dangerous situations where people’s lives hang in the balance, and they just get on with it, step-by-step until the emergency is over.
(Fun fact: one of the Station 51 crew was played by a real fireman because they needed someone qualified to drive the fire engine. Shout out to the adequate acting skills and exemplary driving of the perfectly named Mike Stoker! This is both the actor and character’s name.)
Everyone also generally comports themselves with a caring, calming demeanor. (Occasionally, this slips as part of a particular plot point, usually on the hospital side of the action, but it’s quite rare.) These are people I would want to be rescued by. They exude competence and comfort, including emotional restraint in the face of bad behavior. In one episode, for example, John is (not seriously) injured in responding to a call that turns out to be a prank. While the kids responsible are walked off by the police, presumably to have their parents called and get a stern talking to, no one shows anger; it’s just all taken in stride. I do recognize that the 1970s was never exactly like this, but I wish I lived in this world!
It’s a Great Model of Non-Toxic Masculinity
This is related to point one but worth discussing on its own. This is a 1970s show with sharply defined, fairly traditional gender roles. (All the emergency responders are men.) It is not great at writing women, apart from nurse Dixie, who is amazing in every way. Most others are pretty stereotypical 1970s fare, usually not painful, just underdeveloped.
The men, however, exemplify non-toxic masculinity. They convey a sense of genuine confidence with nothing to prove. They put safety first; they don’t take stupid risks. If they have to climb a dangerous tower, they do it slowly and methodically with all the prescribed safety equipment. And while they do plenty of traditionally masculine dangerous feats, they also do a lot of traditionally feminine care work, sometimes even doing stuff like holding another man’s head in their lap (gasp). They also take good care of each other. For example, in the episode mentioned above where John is injured, Roy helps him climb back down the ladder and John accepts his help, all completely straightforwardly. And since they are part of a firefighting team on multiday shifts, they also do a lot of cooking and cleaning.
Further, though it might be a minimum expectation for today (I hope), for a show from the ‘70’s, I’m also impressed that there is no flirtation in the midst of rescue work, not even when rescuing a sexy girl. Sometimes, there may be flirting later, say as she’s getting out of the hospital, but on the job, everything is professional. In comparison to contemporaneous shows, such as Starsky and Hutch, I think that was pretty rare, and it shows a lot of respect for women and a lot of respect for the seriousness of the work first responders do.
Finally, there’s no expectation that people should always look sexy. These guys are nice looking but don’t look like they spend hours a day at the gym. Their uniforms are functional, not gorgeously tailored, and their physical comportment is not showy but matter-of-fact.
In our society today, with all the misogynistic vitriol of men’s rights culture and “alphas,” and so on, Emergency! provides good role modeling, notwithstanding occasional ‘70’s gender politics. I kind of want to show it to teenage boys (with contextualization of the ‘70’s gender politics, of course).
It’s Got Surprisingly Decent Native American Representation
Disclaimer: I’m white, so this is all a white settler’s take.
I don’t know whether it was part of the initial concept or an accident of casting (I suspect the latter), but one of the leads, John, is Native American. This is so unstressed that for quite a while I assumed that, though the actor is Native American, the character was supposed to be white; he could pass. But the show actually does identify John as having Native American ancestry. As I write this, I’ve seen about half the show and, to date, it’s had a couple of episodes that mention his ancestry in passing and one that actually delves into it. That episode is impressive (certainly by 1970’s standards). Over twenty years before the publication of Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Decolonizing Methodologies, it shows John protesting anthropological “studies” of Native Americans as both objectifying and a misuse of funds that would be better spent on directly serving the needs of people living on reservations. This is a deep cut into comparatively subtle forms of racism still rarely discussed in mainstream culture today.
Nonetheless, 99% of the time, John’s race/ethnicity are not alluded to, which in United States culture means he is essentially written as “white” (the “invisible” race). That’s not ideal, but if I had to choose between a Native American stereotype and a well-developed, individualized Native American character with close to zero reference to that ancestry, I’d choose the latter. Of the two, it feels much less insulting and less unrealistic. (The actor, Randolph Mantooth, has said he eschewed Native characters early in his career to avoid being typecast in stereotypical roles, and it appears he was successful.)
Native Americans, to this day, generally get either no representation or poor representation in stories that aren’t explicitly about Native people and their oppressions. Consider Star Trek, that founding text of diverse representation: in almost sixty years, I cannot think of any major, recurrent Native American character besides Chakotay, who is famously an example of stereotypical representation. All in all, even by 21st-century standards, John is a breath of fresh air for me as far representation goes. That may seem like a low bar, but US media has set the bar pretty low. In any case, it’s something I appreciate about Emergency!
Bonus Points: Dixie
Emergency! is not the show I’d choose to watch for exceptionally well-written women, in general, but Dixie, the only female character in the main cast, is really wonderful. She is a highly competent nurse and mature, thoughtful person, not especially young and not done up to be especially gorgeous. She also a genuinely interesting friendship with the lead doctor, who some writer decided to name “Kelly Brackett.” As far as I can make out, they have—or have had—what I’d call a sexual friendship. They are certainly friends first and foremost and don’t seem to be “in a relationship,” but early in the series, they do seem to crash at each other’s houses sometimes, and it’s just all lovely and straightforward.
All in all, I highly recommend this show as an inoculation against the general atmosphere of our current angry and desperate society. Though outdated in some ways, it’s aspirational in others and comforting at a moment when we all need a bit more comfort.
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Date: 2025-12-24 11:23 pm (UTC)This show was causal to my cousin becoming a paramedic. It was popular on first run and reruns when we were kids.it also helped the paramedic professionalized right when we were graduating high school.
I don’t recall much of it, and later I realized that one of my favourite singers was a nurse on the show, Julie London. She is on my daily music rotation. For obvious talented reasons.
Thanks for the interesting insight.