mark/elizabeth...doug/carol

greenspun.com : LUSENET : ER Discussions : One Thread

Since we all have nothing to do for a couple more weeks I thought I'd throw out some ideas for general speculation...

Anyone have any ideas on where Mark and Elizabeth are going? I have to say they're not my favorite ER couple...after the buildup with Susan, and then Mark's emotional needs explaining his thing with Cynthia, Mark and Elizabeth feel a bit randomnly thrown together. I just don't get it in the same way I got Mark/Susan or even Elizabeth/Peter. I can't help but wonder how the writers will keep it going. A pregnancy scare? A marriage proposal? (Yawn!) Or will they just drift apart as Elizabeth and Peter did? What might be interesting is if one or the other ended up falling super-hard for someone else...(hopefully Mark...he's been hurt too many times!)

Also, has anyone heard any rumors/speculation on how Carol will be leaving? Again, I'm hoping for just the right amount of drama. (Susan's leaving=just right; Doug's leaving=overdramatic; Jeanie's leaving=underdramatic, though much of what had happened to her previously was overdone). I don't want Carol to have any personal involvement with Luka. I think the mild flirting we've seen so far has been OK, almost like a wink-wink joke between the writers and audience on how much Goran and George look alike, but if it goes any further the show will officially become a soap opera. As far as Carol's leaving...I'd like to see her struggling a bit. The grind of parenthood getting to her maybe. I want her to consider the benefits of a two-parent household...slowly realize how important being with Doug is...and maybe George's guest appearance on the show could be a situation in which Carol & girls spend an episode in (where is Doug now? Portland) with him, like when Peter was in Mississippi...I think if Carol is leaving Chicago, we the viewers deserve a picture of what that life will be like. Maybe even if she moved to be with him platonically, realizing he needs to be a part of his daughters' lives but is not the best romanitic partner for her... I don't know...I just hope it'll feel real... I'm feeling apprehensive though....

-- nancy (tbc@po.cwru.edu), March 10, 2000

Answers

George and Goran look alike??????????? well, they both have dark hair........

-- Alexis (lexicat1@webtv.net), March 10, 2000.

I'd have to agree with you, we need to catch a glimpse of what life will be like for Carol & Doug when they go off to Seattle to raise their daughters and (hopefully) get married. We deserve to see Carol struggling with the decision she has to make, talking it over with Mark, Doug speaking to Mark, Carol telling Kerry (or is it Romano, now?) that she's leaving to be with Doug, maybe Doug and Weaver making some sort of a peace with each other, etc.

-- Leigh (WillnGraceNYC@yahoo.com), March 10, 2000.

hey, you have to give mark and elizebeth time.you know doug and carol never hit it off till later in the 3rd season...elizebeth and peter were so wrong for each other. first i felt that peter did'nt really comitt to there relationship..he was always moody. mark and susan...they were never really a couple. i didnt like susan that much....mark and cynthia were just not happining ok? i dont think that they were going anywhere..she had to many secrets. mark was probably depressed during the 5th season till he found elizebeth!

-- rachel (thehilfigergirl@aol.com), March 11, 2000.

See the next question on the message board and the answers to the original comment. Some spoilers are there about Carol and Doug. (the Star magazine question)

-- joan (joanofarc24@hotmail.com), March 12, 2000.

Sorry, alternate perspective here. Two parent households are not always the best places for children to be raised. If Doug is still acting the way he did when he was in Chicago, I would have serious reservations about renewing a relationship with him and having my daughters live with him, if I were Carol. Has anyone forgotten his tendency to drink too much, and his womanizing ways? Not to mention his self destructive behavior which almost obliterated Carol's career as well as his own. I just can't see him being a good father figure (remember how he let Jake down in the show's early seasons?) I think Carol should forget about Doug and go to medical school. If she left the show for medical school it would be such an affirmation for her and single mothers everywhere, that you don't always need a man, especially not the wrong man to achieve your goals and be happy. If Doug comes back and they "ride off into the sunset" it will be very much like a silly, old-fashioned, fairy tale. Please!

-- Annie (GoldenLaur@aol.com), March 12, 2000.


I think that womanizing days of Dr. Ross were far away when he left Chicago, so they are even further now. I have never understood the behaviour of the characters during the last two seasons-the producers seem to consider that we are able to accept everything they choose for the show. Definitely, the appearence of D.Ross in the show would be good for everybody.

-- pepa manzano (mmanzanov@meditex.es), March 12, 2000.

So, Annie, this must mean that characters and people cannot change? Peter Benton is only interested in himself, because that's how he was earlier? Kerry Weaver is disliked by the staff because that's how it was earlier?

Sorry, I don't accept such a simplistic explanation. The reason that "Doug" isn't with his babies is because the writers don't want to do it. Doug, the character willingly decided to have a baby with Carol and from what we've been led to believe, wanted to raise them with her. Doug, the character, asked to come back and Carol said no.

Do you think Carol should just pick up and go to medical school, putting herself into debt for hundreds of thousands of dollars and spending days and nights away from them while she studies and works?

For me, the option I think she'll pick is to be with the man she's loved for eight years, the father of her children. That's my hope.

-- Phyl (erfan@flash.net), March 12, 2000.


Right on Phyl. I agree totally about med school. Been there done that. She decided she loved being a nurse. Now she's a mother, and hopefully is now starting to think more about what is best for her children than furthering her career. Hopefully, she will finally realize after trying to live without him for a year that Doug is the only man she has ever loved and that she doesn't want to live the rest of her life without him, or raise his children alone. He loves her also, his leaving was not premeditated, he left only because he had to. After a year to mull over the way he left it makes more sense now There is no way he'd have left unless forced to. The producers have left Doug and Carol in limbo for more than a year now. They owe us a satisfying conclusion to there love story.

-- Dianne (trekker@myremarq.com), March 13, 2000.

I am confused! I read that Mark and Elizabeth are a boring couple. They just threw them together and the next thing you know they are in bed together. Didn't they start to date a little last season-off and on over the summer. They didn't jump into bed at the drop of a hat. They started out as associates and then friends. At first they seemed to be there to comfort each other and help each other over some rough bumps in their lives. Mark didn't just look at Elizabeth as a sex object, as he did with the desk clerk. You can see that they do things together other than just going back to Mark's and having sex. I think their relationship is what might have transpired between Susan and Mark ifshe hadn't left. Theirs seems like a committed and mature relationship between two mature people. When ER started Doug and Carol were already past any initial relationship and had already broken up. Theirs wasn't a mature and committed relationship and hadn't been from the beginning. I belive it was originally based on sexual attraction and not some deep romantic subtext. Yet that is how it is always portrayed in everthing I have read. They both stumbled many times along the path to romance and relationships and right now it looks as if the stumbled one too many times. I think I would take Mark and Elizabeth as the more long lasting and more satisfing couple.

-- Lindsay Zipprich (Lindsayz@webtv.net), March 13, 2000.

Sure, if you consider being incredibly BOR-ING! to be satisfying.

I would hope that, for my sake anyway, being in a long-lasting relationship does not necessitate having zip chemistry whatsoever.

-- joy (jac301@is9.nyu.edu), March 14, 2000.



Thanks, Phyl, for your alternate perspective to my alternate perspective! After all, that is why we have this forum and it is refreshing when everyone deosn't agree with each other. Let me just clarify a few things I wrote earlier.

I know people aren't static and that they can change, and sometimes do. I also know the change has to come from within and cannot be imposed by someone else (think about significant others, here!). But something as ingrained as Doug's self-destructive behavior would be difficult (I didn't say impossible) to change. Maybe becoming a father will give him the positive influence he needs to make a conscious effort to change, but it didn't happen that way with his own father. Still, it could happen, and maybe it has already happened. If so, great, then Doug and Carol and the babies should be together if they can be a relatively stable and loving family. I would really like to see that happen!

But if Doug is still up to his old tricks, then I don't want to see Carol go back to him just because she needs a man or because, as the father of her children, he is the only one who can fill that role of man for her. If he is still a jerk, she would be better off being independent, just like the woman Luka treated who insisted on going back to her abusive husband. Sometimes a woman is better off without a man at all than with a certain type of man.

Doug and Carol aren't together because the writers don't want them to be together?? Really? Of course, that is why everything that happens on the show, happens. Because it was in the script. It is a very good answer, but much too obvious and simplistic. If we made that same argument for everything that happens, there would be no discussion board. The joy and the fun of this forum come from looking into character's motives, seeing their emotions, analyzing their thoughts. Not telling ourselves that someone did such-and-so because the writers told them to. That's no fun at all and just a no-brainer!

Carol going to medical school is something I brought up because of her actions when Andrea overdosed in "Be Patient". She was so capable and in charge that Kerry and Dave, the doctors, basically assisted her. Since medical school for Carol has been alluded to from time to time, that scene just stuck in my mind and brought the possibility back to me. As for school being in the way of seeing her babies, she hardly sees them now, and we don't see them at all!

Anyway, I doubt she will go to medical school, I just thought it would be a better option than going back to Doug if he's still the same old Doug. If his past is truly past, then let them get together. It certainly has been a long time in coming, and I agree, we do deserve to see it happen, if it's really for the best.

-- Annie (GoldenLaur@aol.com), March 15, 2000.


The reason I wrote that they weren't together because the writers didn't want them together is that they did a very poor job, in my estimation, of proving to me that this loving relationship could have deteriorated to the point it has and I still maintain that the characters *as they were written previously* would not have stayed apart like this.

As I've written elsewhere, I don't doubt that Doug hadn't changed professionally, but personally I think he has worked hard *not* to be what his father was. The small, few, hints we've gotten on the show seem to point to the fact that he wanted to come back, Carol refused, and that he's tried to contact her.

I still don't believe medical school is a viable option for her.

-- Phyl (erfan@flash.net), March 17, 2000.


that is cop-out writing here. if doug and carol were real people, in real life, and doug knew about those babies, and was trying very hard not to be like his father, would she stay away just because carol told him not to come back? thats rediculous, bad writing!! and does carol love the twins as much as everyone thinks she does, considering she doesnt want them to have a father, and be raised by a nanny? its not loke her and doug had a one night stand, and he would be staying with her "just for the kids", he loves her, and she knows it! i think he left in the hopes that carol would eventually change her mind, and come with him. if he knew about those twins he would never have gone, or he wouldve come back, but maybe now he feels it is too late? this is bad writing. sorry.

-- Alexis (lexicat1@webtv.net), March 20, 2000.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ