“Hey, I’ve got a funny story about that moose!”… is something we might hear Janine Turner tell Rob Morrow (or vice versa) on the first episode of a new podcast launching May 20, Northern Disclosure.
The two stars of the Emmy-winning 1990s romantic comedy series Northern Exposure, set in the zany fictitious town of Cicely, Alaska, are adding their names to the avalanche of television stars binging their old shows, offering commentary about the storylines and sharing behind-the-scenes tales. (I can personally attest that Kristin Davis’s Sex and the City rewatch podcast Are You A Charlotte? has radically transformed my life in recent weeks; sci-fi nerds may also want to check out Delta Flyers, a look at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine featuring both a Trill and a Ferengi!)
“Northern Exposure was magical from the start,” Turner, who played the adventuresome postal pilot Maggie O’Connell with a stylish haircut and comically poor romantic luck for six seasons, said in a statement announcing the new project. “The scripts were smart and soulful, always making you laugh and reflect. It felt like everyone wanted to live in Cicely, if even for just an hour a week,” she added.
Rob Morrow, who played the recent New York City medical school graduate Joel Fleischman sent off to the hinterlands to pay off his loans, added, “We used to talk about Northern Exposure taking place in a benevolent universe, where all walks of life could co-exist. On Northern Disclosure we aim to capture some of the same fun, decency, wit, and intelligence that made the show so beloved — then and now.”
Northern Exposure debuted during the summer of 1990 with an eight-episode season run. Though created by Joshua Brand and John Falsey, the successful creators of St. Elsewhere, the show was understandably a roll of the dice for the network, as it was rare for comedies to have single camera set-ups (and no laugh tracks) back then.
Morrow and Turner bickered their way in and out of romance amid the tundra and always called one another by their last names, which was weirdly endearing.
The collection of wacky characters included Barry Corbin as an ex-astronaut industrialist, John Corbett as a philosopher-quoting ex-convict and local radio host, and Elaine Miles as Fleischman’s no-nonsense receptionist, a rare role for an indigenous performer as a series regular at the time. (Miles had never acted before, and was coaxed into the role by producers who spotted her in the audition waiting room; she was only there to accompany her mother.)
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The Whole Sick Crew from ‘Northern Exposure’ (except for the Moose)
Other recurring performers included Adam Arkin, Graham Greene, Teri Polo, and Anthony Edwards. Also, toward the end of the show’s run, its head producer was a pre-Sopranos David Chase.
Here’s a fun ad for Northern Exposure collectable VHS tapes, for those of you still unsure about upgrading to so-called “digital video discs.”
Something seldom discussed these days is the “rising tide” aspect for two unusual series of the period, CBS’ Northern Exposure and ABC’s Twin Peaks, which had debuted just three months earlier.
While Twin Peaks certainly had more startling dramatic elements (it is, after all, about a brutal murder of a high school girl), both were single-camera shows filmed in the Pacific Northwest rife with colorful characters and off-kilter humor. The shows also featured waitress characters named Shelley. (Cynthia Geary’s character on Northern Exposure spelled her name with that second “e,” and Mädchen Amick’s on Twin Peaks did not.)
Bryan Bedder/Getty; CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty
Janine Turner in 2023 and Rob Morrow in 2025
In addition to Northern Exposure, Morrow appeared as a righteous Congressional lawyer in the Oscar-nominated film Quiz Show, as Albert Brooks’ annoying brother in Mother, an FBI agent on 118 episodes of Numbers, and a typically uncouth character on an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Turner, whose career began on the series Dallas and Garry Marshalls’ medical romp Young Doctors in Love, was a lead on Lifetime’s Strong Medicine and on several episodes of Friday Night Lights.
Deadline was the first to report on the Northern Exposure rewatch podcast.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
