[Not big on reboots but I have some ideas]

Christine Lahti was asked if she would do a reboot of Chicago Hope. She said that she would.This got me thinking: Who I would bring back and who I would kill off if I were in charge:

Kill off:
Tommy(Kate’s husband-the man who plays him died a few years ago)

Keith Wilkes

Jack McNeil

Watters

Camille

Alive:
Nyland

Billy Kronk and Diane Grad

Kate Austin

Sara(Kate’s daughter)

Alicia(Alan’s daughter and later Geiger’s adopted daughter)

Aaron Shutt(semi-retired but gets called in every so often and he still has a office at the hospital.)

How to write characters back in:
This is where is gets interesting seeing as how it was left with several characters-Nyland left after he was charged with manslaughter but I’m thinking there was a discrepancy and a inquest some time later and he was cleared(yes I know....) Wilkes was actually the one responsible and he wound up killing his family and himself. When Chicago Hope reopens he is hired as the head of the ER where he started in the first place.

Billy and Diane were fired at the end of Season 5. Fortunately they were able to find work elsewhere and have done very well for themselves. Their daughter Emily is going to the University Of Chicago as a post grad :)

Aaron, as I said, is semi retired .He has remarried(Camille died after a short illness) and is a grandfather several times over thanks to his stepchildren :)

The apple does not fall far from the tree as both Alicia and Sara are on the board of the hospital and any decisions that have to be made are approved by them. Geiger occasionally visits the hospital-he is officially retired but checks in to make sure that everything is going ok. Alicia has it under control-more than her dad did when he was on the board/working at the hospital.

As for how Chicago Hope came to be revived: In the last episode which aired 20 years ago, it was ambiguous as to whether the hospital was going to close or not(of course that was the case for most of the seasons- they played fast and loose with whether the hospital was going to stay open or not(especially true of the second season-that is why I said that they play fast and loose ... A private hospital having *that much* trouble staying open?I’m sure it happens but Chicago Hope took it to a ridiculous level.

Chicago Hope sat empty-because it did close after that last episode -and went into disrepair.Then a anonymous benefactor decided that they wanted to bring the hospital back.It took many years(the hospital was in bad shape). And there were calls to be made of course and were able to find quite a few of the old staff who were happy to come back when they found out who would be running the show. Sara is not at all like her mother(though she has certainly leaned a thing or two from her) and Alicia is capable in her own way.She is revealed to be a wunderkind of some sort which makes her perfect for the job of running the hospital.She essentially grew up with Geiger but in recent years has started to become curious about Alan and Geiger has provided her with a fair amount of information. She also found her birth mother and they have a relationship.

Jack McNeil died after an incident involving an unpaid debt.Of course he did.

Watters died of a heart attack a few years after the hospital closed down.

Dennis Hancock’s health declined a year into his firing from Chicago Hope. He was adrift without a job and healthcare to boot.He put off going to the doctor for 5 years.When he finally got around to going to the doctor(a clinic, much like the one had run, ironically )it’s cancer.Terminal.All over his body.The doctors were amazed he was able to walk, it was THAT bad. Dennis suffered for another 2 years before he died.

(I like this.Maybe I’ll write a pilot script for the reboot and post it.Yes,that’s exactly what I’ll do.)