Twenty-four years ago this month, the NBC medical drama St. Elsewhere (1982–1988) aired a doozy of a Christmas episode: “AIDS and Comfort.” Broadcast on December 21, 1983, it became the first in TV history to address AIDS—four months before HIV was even identified. The show followed a fictional Boston city councilman who may have contracted the mysterious pathogen either from a blood transfusion or unprotected sex. It set a standard for sensitivity and intelligence often lacking in prime time’s subsequent takes. Michael Brandon, who played the councilman, says, “Everyone said I was committing career suicide. Ten years later, Tom Hanks won an Oscar for Philadelphia—and they called me a trailblazer.”
