The BEST episodes of Northern Exposure
Every episode of Northern Exposure ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Northern Exposure!
Dr. Joel Fleischman graduates from Columbia University medical school thanks to a scholarship from the state of Alaska. Though he was promised a placement at the large hospital in Anchorage, he is instead whisked away to the tiny town of Cicely, where he must work off his education debt as the local General Practitioner. The location is remote, the people are weird and quirky, and all Joel wants is to return to New York.
#1 - Birds of a Feather
Season 5 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/1/1993
Joel's parents come to Cicely and his father's know-it-all attitude gets on Joel's nerves and his mother gets back to nature. Holling's dislike of sports causes Shelly to ponder their baby's athletic future and his stature among the men of Cicely.
#2 - Mr. Sandman
Season 5 - Episode 12 - Aired 1/10/1994
The aurora borealis causes the residents of Cicely to swap their dreams, exposing secrets. Maggie has Holling's dream about being a cab driver in Quebec, driving his overbearing father around. Ron has Maurice's dream about blue pumps. Joel sleepwalks in search of candy, having a child's dream. Holling has Dave's dream about kayaking with a spatula. Walt has someone's dream (Joel's?) about climbing a never ending tower.
#3 - Spring Break
Season 2 - Episode 5 - Aired 5/6/1991
Things get a little crazy as the town waits for the annual ice breakup and the annual "running of the bulls" down the streets of Cicely. Joel and Maggie find themselves irresistibly drawn together, Maurice is attracted to a dominating state trooper sent to uncover the villain behind the annual rash of petty thefts and Holling challenges all the customers to a fight.
#4 - Cicely
Season 3 - Episode 23 - Aired 5/18/1992
Joel meets an old man who's returned to Cicely after many years. The man tells him the story of two remarkable women, Roslyn and Cicely, whom transformed the town into "the Paris of the North" back in 1909.
#5 - Our Wedding
Season 3 - Episode 22 - Aired 5/11/1992
As their wedding approaches, Adam debates with Joel about women and Eve lets a gung-ho Shelly take over the wedding plans as she worries about more important matters. Maggie and Joel try in their own ways to come to grips with their experience in Juneau.
#6 - The Quest
Season 6 - Episode 15 - Aired 2/8/1995
Joel finds a map and brings Maggie with him on a quest to find a mythical city, they meet a belligerent gatekeeper, and when faced with a crossroads, Joel sees his future and departs. Phil cleans out some impacted earwax for Chris, but Chris sues him for malpractice when his inner ear is damaged. Maurice lets Holling know that Michelle is writing an article on restaurants for Alaska Highways magazine, but she can't find any good words to describe the food at the Brick.
#7 - Wake Up Call
Season 3 - Episode 19 - Aired 3/23/1992
As spring blossoms, Shelly suffers from a skin rash, Holling gives away eggs, Joel gets a new outlook on patient care from a tribal medicine man and Maggie experiences a spiritual and physical re-awakening with a handsome stranger.
#8 - A-Hunting We Will Go
Season 3 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/18/1991
Joel decides to explore the fascination of hunting by accompanying Chris and Holling on their annual pilgrimage. Ed becomes worried and over solicitous when he learns that Ruth-Anne is seventy-five years old.
#9 - Burning Down the House
Season 3 - Episode 14 - Aired 2/3/1992
Maggie receives an unexpected visit and some unwanted news from her mother. Meanwhile, Chris searches everywhere for just the right cow to fling for his conceptual art piece and Joel becomes obsessed with a local chimney sweep that he believes is a former pro golfer.
#10 - Family Feud
Season 4 - Episode 19 - Aired 3/8/1993
A totem pole carved in tribute to the Raven clan reopens a bitter rift between them and the Bear clan. Shelly gets medical advice telling her that getting married may help her to get rid of the strange hallucinations with dancers that she's been having. Joel confronts Maggie about their "whatever" and her relationship with Mike; together they decide they're "mutually desirous incompatibles."
#11 - Get Real
Season 3 - Episode 9 - Aired 12/9/1991
A stranded bus of carnival performers brings romance to Marilyn, doubts about her future to Maggie, the mysteries of magic to Chris, and a break to the studious Joel; Shelly however, is pained when Holling becomes fixated on her large feet.
#12 - Una Volta in L'Inverno
Season 5 - Episode 17 - Aired 3/7/1994
Ruth-Anne tries learning Italian, so she can read Dante, and gets some help from Shelly. Walt needs sunlight to overcome his depression, so he gets his light glasses and becomes addicted, so Chris & Holling perform an intervention. Caribou block Main Street, so the mayor takes action. While waiting out a storm in the airport cabin with Maggie, everything is going Joel's way, until Ed shows up.
#13 - Ursa Minor
Season 6 - Episode 21 - Aired 7/12/1995
Ed learns the responsibilities of parenthood when he begins caring for a lost bear cub. Maurice discovers that Cicely's population is declining. Chris uses a device that allows him to manipulate his dreams and work out some issues in his relationship with Maggie. Michelle waitresses at the Brick while continuing to work out her issues with Phil.
#14 - Up River
Season 6 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/14/1994
Maurice sends Ed after Joel, who's moved up river; and Joel tells Ed of the few days he and Maggie spent together, where every time they got together, there was gunfire. Chris hires a contractor to improve the lot around his trailer and it turns his world upside down. When Walt goes away to check his traps, Ruth-Anne realizes that she's fallen in love and tries to fight it.
#15 - The Body in Question
Season 3 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/4/1991
Chris' discovery of the frozen body of a Napoleonic Frenchman raises many questions for Joel, has Maurice dreaming of the economic benefits for Cicely, Shelly worrying over fertility and Holling confessing over his despicable ancestors.
#16 - The Bumpy Road to Love
Season 3 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/23/1991
Maggie is devastated when the unveiling of a statue in Rick's memory uncovers his life and loves away from Cicely. Maurice stumbles in his pursuit of Officer Semanski when she learns he favors tax loopholes. Joel is kidnapped and held prisoner by the reclusive Adam and his hypochondriacal mate Eve.
#17 - Mite Makes Right
Season 5 - Episode 13 - Aired 1/17/1994
A musician tries to stop Maurice from storing, in his safe, a 1.6 million-dollar violin he's just bought as an investment. Maggie becomes obsessed with ridding her house of dust mites after she develops an allergy to them. Chris struggles to find inspiration for his latest sculpture. Joel and Maggie have their first date, which ends early because of talk about things microscopic.
#18 - The Graduate
Season 6 - Episode 17 - Aired 3/8/1995
Maggie outbids Maurice for the ownership of the town's rundown theater, which she begins to run with help of Ed and Heather. Two professors come to Cicely for the oral examination for Chris' master's degree; instead they clash over Chris' dissertation. A young Canadian Air Force lieutenant claims that Holling is his father, something proven because Holling sent his mother money every month for 25 years; however, that is just covering up a secret from his past. The theatre business causes stress for Maggie.
#19 - Full Upright Position
Season 6 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/7/1994
Maurice welcomes his young cousin Maurice to Cicely, hopefully to take over the family business. Charges of static electricity generate a new interest--and a new art project--for Chris. Meanwhile sparks fly between Joel and Maggie on a Russian airline bound for St. Petersburg, where Joel is scheduled to speak at a medical convention.
#20 - Animals 'R' Us
Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/14/1991
Maggie becomes convinced that the stray dog that's adopted her is Rick reincarnated. Maurice tries to convince Marilyn to join him in a multi-million dollar scheme to produce and market ostriches. Ed looks for help in making a movie about Cicely.
#21 - Tranquility Base
Season 6 - Episode 23 - Aired 7/26/1995
Maurice's plans to ask Barbara to marry him while spending the weekend at his new summer home are in jeopardy when her style clashes with the way he wants his guests treated. Phil and Michelle continue to try to work out their differences and Ed (in his Shaman capacity) and Joel's Rabbi offer some advice. Chris is on the loose when Maggie doesn't make the journey to Maurice's but soon realizes that he is a changed man. The Vincoeurs stay locked up in their room when Holling is in heat.
#22 - Old Tree
Season 4 - Episode 25 - Aired 5/24/1993
The town's oldest tree is dying. Shelly wakes up and finds that she can't talk, but she can sing. The town asks Joel to diagnose Old Vicki. Chris goes wireless and is freed from the confines of the broadcast booth. Shelly's singing starts to get on Holling's nerves. Maggie tries to be pleasant to Joel and the result of all this kindness is that Joel keeps getting injured. Maurice is intent on bringing the tree down. Shelly becomes worried that she may never talk again. After the felling of Old Vicki, the town has a wake. Maurice feels remorse after the felling of Old Vicki. Maggie and Joel cut a deal to try keeping Joel injury free.
#23 - Homesick
Season 4 - Episode 20 - Aired 3/15/1993
Maggie is excited when she thinks she has "cured" her latest beau, as opposed to killing him; however she is crushed when he tells her that he leaving to work for Greenpeace in Murmansk. Holling is disgusted by Shelly's redecorating of their bed & bathroom. Maurice moves his childhood home to Cicely and it stirs up memories of his brother.
#24 - First Snow
Season 5 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/13/1993
As the town prepares for winter, a healthy elderly patient tells Joel she is dying, much to his disbelief. Maggie decides to redecorate her house before winter sets in and gets a new chair that no one seems to like. Holling must figure out how many plots to dig at the cemetery before the ground freezes. Shelly lies to Maurice about never saying she loved him and she thinks her nose has begun to grow because of it.
#25 - It Happened in Juneau
Season 3 - Episode 21 - Aired 5/4/1992
Joel foresees sophisticated delights when he travels to Juneau for a medical conference but winds up with good old Maggie, meanwhile back in Cicely, Chris finds himself tongue-tied with the return of Bernard, his cosmic doppelganger.