Critical reactions for "ER"s first season were very favorable. Alan Rich, writing for "Variety", praised the direction and editing of the pilot while Eric Mink, writing for the New York "Daily News", said that the pilot of "ER" "was urban, emergency room chaos and young, committed doctors." However some reviewers felt the episodes following the pilot did not live up to it with Mink commenting that "the great promise of the "E.R." pilot dissolves into the kind of routine, predictable, sloppily detailed medical drama we've seen many times before."