Northern Exposure: Season 3

Adam drags Joel along to a house call for his wife, Eve (Valerie Mahaffey), a hypochondriac with a long list of imagined maladies. After the couple argues, Eve knocks Joel out with a kettle and chains him up. Another argument between Adam and Eve leads to Joel sitting them down for an impromptu therapy session. The unveiling of a statue of Rick, who was killed by a falling satellite, brings Maggie face-to-face with a girlfriend of Rick's she never knew about, which leads to her getting drunk and

Joel learns that women are physically attracted to Chris because of his pheromones. Chris develops a crush on traveling optometrist Dr. Irene Rondenet (Caitlin Clarke), the one woman unaffected by his scent. Maurice's resentment over Shelly leaving him for Holling returns after he thinks Holling's photo of him smiling makes him look like a fool; it turns out that all three principals have completely different recollections of Shelly's first encounter with Holling. Maggie worries about getting ol

While returning from administering immunizations in a remote village, Joel and Maggie are stranded in the wilderness when Maggie's plane develops engine trouble. While Maggie goes hunting in response to his complaining about the food, he begins to look at her broken airplane engine as a medical problem. Shelly's best friend Cindy (Christine Elise) comes to town to tell Shelly that she has married Shelly's husband Wayne, a minor league hockey player, and to ask Shelly to divorce him. They air the

Ed becomes so discouraged when he sees the footage compiled of the film he has been making with Holling and Chris as actors. Joel visits Ed, and their conversation (involving Ed showing him letters from his pen-pal Martin Scorsese) inspire him to start anew and film what he knows: the community of Cicely. Maggie comes to believe that a stray dog is the reincarnation of her boyfriend Rick. Maurice persuades Marilyn to become his business partner in her ostrich farm, but Marilyn cancels the deal w

On Halloween, Joel knocks himself unconscious while chasing after an overage trick-or-treater who sprayed silly string on him when Joel tried giving him only a dime. The next day, his slick twin brother (and polar opposite) Jules shows up. He talks Joel into switching identities like they did when they were kids. Jules (as Joel) pursues Maggie, while Joel (as Jules) gets jailed and ends up being given an impromptu psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud. It turns out to be just a dream. Joel does not ha

The frozen body of a French soldier is found, along with a diary that claims that Napoleon came to Alaska with the deceased, rather than fight the Battle of Waterloo. Joel gets a visit from the prophet Elijah, and as his disbelief is slowly undermined, he begins to worry that his stay in Cicely is changing him. Maurice aspires to build a museum to take advantage of the frozen body. Holling, seeing the body as a reminder of his descent from evil French aristocrats, is worried about what Shelly wo

Fleischman's ex-fiancée Elaine, who jilted him for a much older man, shows up unannounced after the death of her husband. Fleischman is very upset, but Maggie talks him into reconnecting with Elaine. They do, which triggers mixed feelings in Maggie. Chris has dreams of African dancers. The arrival of his half-brother Bernard helps him decide to declare himself a "person of color" and interpret the dreams to mean he should go to Africa. Adam makes another appearance.

Joel is shocked when Maggie shows up with a magnificent deer she has shot. After she berates him for not knowing what he is talking about, he decides to go along on a hunting trip with Holling and Chris. He ends up shooting a grouse before taking it back to try and treat the bird to health, but it ends up dead. Meanwhile, Ed worries about Ruth-Anne after her foot injury and finding out that she just turned 75. Ed throws a belated surprise party for Ruth-Anne at The Brick, with some of the food p

A small traveling circus troupe (portrayed by members of Cirque du Soleil) is temporarily stranded in Cicely when their bus breaks down, and the silent "Flying Man" (Bill Irwin) takes a fancy to Marilyn. Shelly takes offense to Holling tactlessly noting that she has "inordinately large" feet. With Ed's help, Joel studies hard for a medical exam he wants to take.

The town celebrates the holidays with a Raven pageant, while Maggie dreads going home for the holidays and is publicly relieved (but privately saddened) when her parents instead take a Caribbean vacation. Joel, who is Jewish, feels guilty about getting his first Christmas tree. Holling sings "Ave Maria" for Shelly, who is pining for a traditional Christmas mass. Maurice is shocked to learn he has a grown Korean son (Min-Hyung Song), Duk Won, from his Korean War service when the man, his mother a

Maurice boosts his local newspaper's circulation by hiring Adam as a secret columnist; the first of his articles claims that trees have voices. Maggie hears them, but Joel is characteristically skeptical. Holling offers Chris a partnership in The Brick to raise money to pay off his delinquent tax bill. Chris sets about making changes that increase profits, but also irritate Holling.

Joel reluctantly undergoes a cultural conversion after a tribal elder, grateful for being cured, insists on "adopting" him into her tribe. A mysterious Holling sends Shelly back home to Saskatoon for a visit and shuts down The Brick, ostensibly to wax the floors; Maggie tries to find out what he is really doing.

After he learns that his Uncle Charlie has died, Holling has a mid-life crisis. Ed films Ira Wingfeather (Bryson G. Liberty) making duck flutes. Joel feels culturally isolated when he has trouble finding other Jews in Alaska, so Maurice takes him on a road trip to visit one of the few to try to cheer him up.

Maggie receives a double dose of trauma when her visiting mother (Bibi Besch) announces she is divorcing Maggie's father and accidentally burns down Maggie's house. Meanwhile, Chris searches for just the "right" cow to fling with the trebuchet he is building for his performance art. He becomes depressed when Ed mentions that it has already been done (in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail). In the end, he finds a replacement in Maggie's burnt piano.

Incumbent Holling is stung when his old friend Edna (Rita Taggart) decides to run against him for the office of mayor, a post he has held uncontested for 23 years, because of a promise he forgot about. Shelly finds power to be an aphrodisiac, Chris waxes patriotic, Ed anticipates his first vote, and Joel and Maggie argue about party politics.

The death of a longtime friend sends Holling and Maurice into the wilderness with his lusty widow (Joanna Cassidy), to make good on a promise to bury him miles from civilization at No-Name Point. Chris reads from The Call of the Wild, which parallels Holling and Maurice's journey.

After hearing a voice and seeing nobody around, Joel discovers his cabin is believed to be haunted by a young man who committed suicide decades before. Eve thinks she is suffering from an exotic illness, but Joel has a much different diagnosis. Maurice is disappointed when his Korean War commanding officer and old friend (Noble Willingham) turns out to be less than perfect.

Shelly's mother Tammy (Wendy Schaal) drops in unexpectedly, followed by her new 24-year-old US Army mechanic husband (Sean O'Bryan), who thinks that Shelly is Tammy's sister. A baby abandoned in Joel's waiting room is temporarily adopted by the townspeople. Adam experiences the same pains as his pregnant wife.

The coming of spring brings love to Maggie, a new skin to Shelly, and to Joel a reminder of the importance of blending compassion with his scientific knowledge. A tall, handsome stranger (Andreas Wisniewski) comes to Maggie's aid when her pickup truck gets stuck in the mud. A romance develops, but there is an unusual problem. Joel reluctantly agrees to be shadowed by Marilyn's cousin Leonard (Graham Greene), a traditional native healer, who wants to learn a little about modern medical practices.

Holling is devastated when Ed tells him that Jesse, a bear who almost mauled Holling to death, has died; Holling wanted to kill Jesse himself. Ron and Erick have great success with their Sourdough Inn, catering to Japanese couples, much to Maurice's disgust. A package that has traveled the world arrives in Cicely addressed to an unknown person, piquing everyone's curiosity.

Maggie flies Joel to a medical conference in Juneau, where he hopes to hook up with single young women doctors. Maggie looks forward to seeing a road production of Les Miz. They are forced to share a hotel suite (with separate bedrooms). Joel meets a New York City doctor (Beth Broderick) who wants to sleep with him, but is put off by her aggressive approach. Eventually he and Maggie decide to have sex, but she falls asleep before they do. The next morning, she assumes they did. Joel, insulted by

When Eve becomes pregnant, she and Adam decide to wed for the baby's sake, but she has misgivings and a secret Adam knows nothing about. Maggie avoids Joel, still believing they slept together in Juneau. When Joel finally confesses the truth, he is surprised by her reaction. Officer Semanski serves Maurice with an official complaint from his neighbor (Ralph P. Martin).

Joel hits, but does not seriously injure, 108-year-old former Cicely resident Ned Svenborg (Roberts Blossom) with his pickup truck late one night. In flashbacks, the man tells current residents the story of Cicely's founders, lesbians Cicely (Yvonne Suhor) and Roslyn (Jo Anderson). In 1908, these "free-thinking" women drive into the then-nameless frontier town, ruled with an iron fist by the absent Mace Mobrey and his gang. The pair realize their utopian dream, winning over the rough residents a