In the years after the pandemic, Warner Bros. Television began plotting to revive the concept behind ER—the smash-hit medical melodrama that launched George Clooney’s career 30 years ago. Alas, the studio ran into a series of predictable roadblocks as its executive team came under new management in David Zaslav and Warner Bros. Discovery. But the most significant issue arose from the great beyond: the fiercely protective estate of Michael Crichton, the bestselling author who turned his experience as an emergency room intern in the 1970s into the NBC series that dominated TV from 1994 to 2009. Sherri Crichton, the author’s widow, was already peeved that her late husband had been short-changed when HBO rebooted Westworld—and began making a fuss over how he’d be credited on the ER reboot, too.