Jacques Derrida Visits Cicely:
The Deconstruction of N orthern E xposure
“We were Mayberry R.F.D. with a Ph.D.,” Barry Corbin once joked
Vi/hon describing the prime time comedy series Northern Exposure} Corbin, one
of the series regulars, was highlighting the blend of intellectual sophistication
and gentle comedy that transformed a well worn narrative motif into
entertainment for the brain as well as for the heart. Indeed. More than once the
series, which aired on CBS from July 1990 until July 1995, was praised by both
viewers and critics for its intellectual chutzpah. It often took up subjects—
language, cultural linguistics, history, psychoanalysis, art, and literature to name
a few that appeared frequently—more likely to be discussed by graduate
students in a humanities seminar than by characters on a popular television
program. On at least one occasion, CBS itself was applauded for stepping boldly
where other networks feared to tread; it aired a story about Deconstruction. This
particular episode surprised humanities professor Sanford Pinsker who gave
CBS much credit for airing it. “I kept wondering,” he said, “if PBS, for all the
brouhaha about its elitism, would dare run the same episode, with its tough
questioning about the ‘objective correlative’ and generous references to the likes
of Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes. I suspect PBS would not, but CBS, in
fact, did.”^ And the series did not restrict its interest to ivory tower topics. The
show, said one viewer, covered “broad themes such as the meaning of life,
concern for the environment, and respect for religious and ethnic differences.”
Its “complex” plots dealt with “meaningful issues,” said another, ^^^lo praised
the series for having “the guts to tackle the hard issues.”^ Critics agreed with the
viewers’ assessment. The New York Times" John J. O’Connor, for instance,
commended the series for commenting “courageously” and “insightfully on
matters like education, culture and art,” and Betsy Williams found in its
episodes a “rigorous negotiation of social, sexual, and spiritual issues.”^
This kind of praise must have gratified co-creators Joshua Brand and
John Falsey, as ideas were intended to be as important to the series as its
characters. “Ideas scare networks” and “they offend people,” Brand said in
defense of the series’ intellectual orientation, but they “are legitimate things to
explore dramatically.”^ The narrative premise was simple. A self-absorbed and
somewfrat arrogant newly minted Jewish physician from New York named Joel
Fleischman is coerced into spending several years practicing medicine in the
isolated Alaskan community of Cicely (pop. 856) to work off the money the
state lent him to pay for medical school. His exile forces him to grapple with an
assortment of free-thinking, articulate individuals with well stocked intellects
whose views of the cosmos and the life it harbors are often in conflict with his
own supposedly more educated, sophisticated views. Thus are a variety conflicts