Northern Exposure: Season 1

Dr. Joel Fleischman arrives in Anchorage, Alaska to fulfill his part of a bargain that paid $125,000 for his medical education in exchange for service in the state as a doctor. Sure, it'll be tough for a guy from New York to adjust to Anchorage, but... then he learns Anchorage doesn't need him, and he's been assigned to Cicely, a small remote town owned and dominated by the strong minded Maurice Minnifield, a former astronaut set on developing his little part of Alaska into a vacation paradise a

Ed gets Joel to talk to his medicine man uncle (Frank Salsedo). The man is seriously ill, but refuses to seek conventional medical treatment out of a fear of losing face with his patients. Maggie berates Joel for not being able to fix his toilet, calling him helpless. Joel decides to try to fix his shower when the hot water stops working. When Maggie hurts her knee, she goes to Joel, but he gives her a hard time for "being helpless". Chris is fired from the radio station after speaking of poet W

An old hermit dies, leaving his land jointly to Maggie and Joel, who have radically different ideas about what to do with it. She wants to create a nature preserve, while he has been approached by rich natives who want to buy it. Joel tells Maggie about the offer, but conceals the fact that the natives wish to use it as a tax shelter. Ed tags along as a film crew works on a documentary on the deceased, Dr. Soapy Sanderson.

Shelly becomes pregnant and a wedding is arranged, but Holling has a deep-rooted fear. His family is long-lived; both his father and grandfather were centenarians, while their wives died young, leaving them alone and grieving for over sixty years each. Holling vowed to avoid their fate. Meanwhile, Maurice entertains a Japanese investor (Michael Paul Chan) interested in building a resort in Cicely, who takes Joel's advice to add a golf course.

Joel's fiancée Elaine (Jessica Lundy) arrives for a visit, only to have the entire town come down with the flu, ruining their time together. In their delirium, the townspeople blame the Russians and eventually the helpless doctor. Marilyn prescribes a foul-smelling native remedy that cures everyone, but refuses to reveal its ingredients. Joel attempts to coax the recipe out of her, saying they could sell it to a pharmaceutical company, and she could use that money for badly needed tribal aid. In

Shelly turns out not to be pregnant; it was all in her mind. To further complicate her relationship with Holling, her twenty-year-old hockey player husband, Wayne (Brandon Douglas) shows up, looking for a divorce so he can marry her best friend. As they get reacquainted, they begin having second thoughts. Rick (Grant Goodeve) visits Joel for a physical, who finds a growth on Rick's chest. Mindful of the weird, untimely deaths of all of Maggie's other boyfriends, he becomes worried. It turns out

Maurice receives word that his brother Malcolm has died, making him the last of the Minnifields. He persuades Chris to become his heir and tries to mold him in his own image, but this drives Chris away. Now without an heir, Maurice announces his plan to live forever. Ed informs Holling that Jesse, the bear that nearly killed him, has returned. Holling, Ed, and Shelly try to track it down, but get sidetracked when Holling spends most of his time in a tent with Shelly while Ed sees and takes a pho

The Northern Lights cause dreaming to intensify among the residents. Joel hears about "Adam" (Adam Arkin), the local version of Bigfoot. When his truck breaks down one night on a lonely road after a house call, he encounters the mysterious creature, who turns out to be an arrogant hermit living deep in the woods. However, nobody in Cicely believes him. Bernard (Richard Cummings Jr.), an African American, shows up. He sold his condo in Portland, bought a motorcycle and rode north without quite kn