If you're viewing this list on a mobile device, use this link to the web that allows for zooming. Kenneth Lowe is a regular contributor to Paste TV. Canceled. St. Television these daysor rather, television that jerks like me actually bother to write aboutbasically falls into two categories now: Heavily scripted and serialized prestige TV or reality show stuff that sounds like a made up show on, . Elsewhere was known for its Composition by Dave Grusin ED BEGLEY JR. (Dr. Victor Ehrlich): It was quite fitting for what they had done the previous six years. St. wouldnt exist in the form they did without. Elsewhere's characters. Birth! When youre finished, watch the cast reunion on Good Morning America and voice your own opinion on the finale in our poll. There are other possible interpretations of Tommy's "vision" which may suggest something other than the entire series being his dream. Via Wikipedia: The most common interpretation of this scene is that the entire series of events in the series St. CHRISTINA PICKLES (Helen Rosenthal): I have no idea what it means. (On that series, Bobby Ewing was brought back to life after his "death" turned out to be just a bad dream. . The kind of gallows humor that was in the show was a case of art imitating life, Paltrow continued. Birth! You never knew what was going to happen next. Elsewhere, like basically every television series that is set in the present day, had crossover episodes or cameos with other popular shows. ", Grandfather: "He's been sitting there ever since you left this morning, just like he does every day. Often, characters crossing over on the same network can ignite a connection, with shared brands or locations providing the connective tissue for others. Marriage! "St. These strings go on across multiple decades of television, with I Love Lucy being the earliest example. Elsewhere" Dwayne McDuffie at the Los Angeles premiere of "All Star Superman" New blog post from our CEO Prashanth: Community is the future of AI, Improving the copy in the close modal and post notices - 2023 edition. Though MTM hasnt had much luck yet syndicating St. Elsewhere with varying degrees of separation, ranging from I Love Lucy to The Flash. Death! The final scene of St. And listen, we set such a bar, its hard to top it to make that ending satisfy a lot of people. The fictional brand or company thing is also Fontana's fault. Television these daysor rather, television that jerks like me actually bother to write aboutbasically falls into two categories now: Heavily scripted and serialized prestige TV or reality show stuff that sounds like a made up show on 30 Rock. Weatherson, in his sixth objection, offers the example of Michael Bloomberg playing the role of New York City Mayor both on Law & Order and in real life, which, if one accepts the logic of the hypothesis, indicates that real life is in the head of Tommy Westphall. Through crossovers, spinoffs, cameos, or fictional brands or products appearing in more than one show, everything from. WebSt Elsewhere (Theme) 12,793 views Feb 18, 2015 137 Dislike Share Save Studio QKLQ 77 subscribers Theme from the 80's TV Series St. Can my creature spell be countered if I cast a split second spell after it? That series' creator, Joss Whedon, also createdFirefly, in which it's established that Wolfram and Hart had also represented a mega-corporation by the name of Weyland-Utani. ). Elsewhere into Homicide.". were arguably all dreamed up by young Tommy. BONNIE BARTLETT (Ellen Craig): [The writers] wanted to do an ending to the show in a way so that it could never be brought back again. The Tommy Westphall universe hypothesis is an idea discussed among some television fans, it makes the claim that not only does St. Elsewhere Tags theory, tv, map, universe, autism, st. elsewhere, concept, 80s Additional References Urban Dictionary Wikipedia About. Suddenly, we're taken to a small apartment where Tommy sits on the floor, playing with a snow globe. What symbolic value does either the globe or the snow have on the ending of the series? The Marvel Cinematic Universe might seem like a huge landscape of interconnected shows and TV movies, but the Tommy Westphall universe has it beat. Howie Mandels Dr. Wayne Fiscus--who distinguished himself by having sex on an autopsy table during the shows first episode--experienced death through a fantasy sequence last season. It seems to imply that the events of the show were all imagined by the mind of a non-verbal young boy. I think reality is much more the smell of the hospital, the smell of death. One prominent critic, Professor Brian Weatherson, argues that just because St. St. Is it positing that the hopes and the fears and the suffering we endure in our lives are being watched by a deity who is interested and all-knowing but who can only gaze in at us and never interfere in our tribulationswhere in all the world but an under-resourced hospital in the planets richest nation could the question of such a beings love or cruelty be more pressing? Even if that's true though, thinking about it remains an amusing diversion. But because we set a bar, it was just hard to really top that I wish I could say that I loved it. I really had very little to say about that episode because I thought it was a letdown. I spent a shift sitting bedside with my daughter in the emergency room during a three-day-long stay once, watching the same sainted nurse come and go as an endless tide of needy patients washed in. In a 2003 article published on BBC News Online, St. Can I use my Coinbase address to receive bitcoin? Cheers spun off the long-running seriesFrasier, and that series had its events referenced or its characters cameo on shows likeCaroline in the City, The John Larroquette Show,and evenThe Simpsons. It was certainly something no other network would put up with. One example: "Episodes where reality shows exist within a fictional sphere are not included (such as the 'X-Files'/'COPS' crossover and the 'Chicago Hope'/'Entertainment Tonight' crossover). At least that's the most widely held interpretation of St. Elsewhere 's final moments. The ending has become an infamous example of the "it was all a dream" conclusion that's appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows over the years. Beginnings and endings are important in all forms of fiction, but Id argue especially so in scripted television. And I dont think that set of circumstances will ever happen again. Elsewhere characters on other shows are not sufficient to indicate that those shows exist only in Westphall's dream. Flashforward! Elsewhere was a show that got by largely on the strength of its ensemble, running for six seasons from 1982-88. Elsewhere have dropped out of the cultural lexicon entirelyexcept for one. Elsewhere 's characters appear in Tommy's dream doesn't mean they don't also Elsewhere through fictional crossovers and spin-offs, resulting in a large fictional universe taking place entirely within Tommy's mind. And most of the connections on the grid are characters, even though something like Morley cigarettes (a fictional brand) has a lot of individual connections, they just add to the connective tissue in certain ways. They needed a way to end the show It was a provocative ending. The show had, above all, an attitude, said Norman Lloyd, whose character, liver specialist Dr. Auschlander, faced his own debilitating liver cancer during the run of the show. The original decision to include fictional product crossovers actually comes from the origins of the chart itself. Fiscus and Morrison and the death of Dr. Auschlander, Thus, it does not follow that because one person, place, or thing is present in two or more works of fiction that those works are necessarily related. Garry Shandling crossed over with The Andy Griffith Show (no, really!). WebSt Elsewhere Closing Credits Season 5 Lorenzo F 1.61K subscribers 47 Share 14K views 2 years ago #bumpers #tvthemes #televisionthemes WELCOME TO MY VIDEOS of little-known, forgotten TV gems. Making a splash: A deep dive into the live-action. You can make up your own line what it means. Elsewhere carries a shocking implication NBC St. Part of HuffPost Entertainment. Elsewhere truly shook things up But of course, none of that is what people really remember the last episode for. St. For example, take thatCheers crossover. That is Among Lloyds favorite sequences was one in which a stoned Dr. Auschlander, treating the side effects of chemotherapy with marijuana, stumbled into a 7-Eleven store with a case of midnight munchies. "The first time I saw [the Tommy Westphall Universe theory] it just completely devastated me, because []We believed that our show was just a speck in the universe, and then it turned out that our show was the universe.". Elsewhere, the magic was in the tone, as it was with another show by the same production company, Hill Street Blues. was a show that got by largely on the strength of its ensemble, running for six seasons from 1982-88. WebThe problem that I see with the ending is that they explained away the whole show as the daydreams of an autistic child's imagination. What's he thinking about?". Elsewhere came to an end for creative as well as financial reasons. Its just asking too much from all of us. But I loved that they took the leap, and that was in the spirit of the show. How Palm Springs ran out Black and Latino families to build a fantasy for rich, white people, 17 SoCal hiking trails that are blooming with wildflowers (but probably not for long! EW gathered a dozen members of the cast for a photo shoot and asked them to reflect on the years they spent making this provocative, eccentric, beloved show, which you can check out in our third-annual Reunions Issue. In another episode, St. Eligius traveled 50 years into the past. The most far-reaching regulation is that they "do not include any show that is not a narrative live-action program with a shared continuity from episode to episode. World of his own. Law & Order creator Dick Wolf is close friends with Fontana and frequently crossed Homicide characters over into his own series. Not necessarily because the serieswhich had earned 13 Emmy Awards during its runwas ending, but because producers opted for a highly unconventional finale. WebIf the St. Ambiguous cut to black! (Quizzed by IndieWire in 2012 as to who exactly came up with the idea, neither Fontana nor co-writers Channing Gibson or John Tinker could remember. Paired with the show's penchant for references, this finale has spawned one of the most bizarre and elaborate fan theories of all time. St. 59K views 4 years ago. I felt one thing when I read it and one thing when I saw it. The entire series is revealed to have been based on the stories Liz Lemon told her great-granddaughter, a future television writer, and as remembered by the more-or-less immortal Parcell. If you notice any other connections, feel free to join in on the madness. Elsewhere. Elsewhere's finale, titled "The Last One," aired on May 25, 1988, and the bulk of its narrative was concerned with the requisite deaths, departures, transfers, and tying up of loose ends that one might expect. A Weyland-Utani ship is also seen in a spaceship graveyard in the British sci-fi series Red Dwarf.. 7. Because a lot of autistic children are withdrawn, it seems as though they're in their own world. The final scene of 30 Rock opens with a view of the eponymous building, which fades into a model of the same, in a snow globe, observed by NBC president Kenneth Parcell roughly a century into the future, as flying cars whiz past his window. From the mind of a young person whose fantasies were coming to life before him, it was neat. I went, Wow. As one of the co-authors of the scene that ignited the entire premise, Fontana said he was stunned to discover the aftershocks and that the theory basically means that Tommy Westphall is the mind of God.. After six seasons of letting those within the hospital doing the hard work of being human and showing humanity it was our turn. Entertainment Weekly is a registered trademark of Meredith Corporation All Rights Reserved. Elsewhere, which established a defiant tradition of baiting the NBC censors, blurring the line between the real and the surreal, tantalizing the alert viewers with inside jokes and subtle references to literature, television and pop music lyrics, going precariously far out on a limb and then deliberately chopping it off. Elsewhere" and "Oz," and, as Gow tells it, "It was that little connection that spawned a thousand other connections -- references to fictional airlines, companies, nods from one series to another.". But I thought it was wonderful. Mandel, Morse, and Washington are among the core cast of younger doctors that stuck around for the entire show, wringing their hands over their critical patients, racing to respond to someone randomly coding in the hallway, or occasionally banging in the morgue. While the doctors of St. Surely more shows have somehow become connected in the four years since, especially since the Crisis on Infinite Earths Arrowverse crossover included characters from nearly every DC movie and TV continuity ever. And I was very upset. Cheers introduced Frasier Crane, of Frasier; Elsewhere by the residents and the surrounding community, the place has a reputation as a rathole. [1][6] This hypothesis was originally put forward by comic book and TV writer Dwayne McDuffie in a 2002 blog post,[8] as a reductio ad absurdum argument against making strong statements about fictional continuity based upon guest appearances. Christina Pickles, whose character of Nurse Helen Rosenthal ended the series triumphantly by kicking a drug dependency, is the only one who believes that St. It was seen as a cheap shot and a quick fix, even though the mechanism and method was mimicked many times over afterwards. Elsewhere airs at 10 p.m. on Channels 4, 36 and 39. Please feel free to submit articles to enhance the knowledge, acceptance, understanding and research of Autism and ASD. "The theory doesn't really depend on Tommy Westphall, but he's a good hook," Gow says. Is it safe to publish research papers in cooperation with Russian academics. Toe-tagged. Elsewhere': About that snow-globe ending. Over the years, the two have gotten countless emails from fans who found their own connections between shows, invested in the prospect of destroying all television storylines with one theory. Westphall, who is autistic, played an increased role in St. Elsewhere ' s final episode, "The Last One", one interpretation of which is that the entire St. Elsewhere storyline exists only within Westphall's imagination. The theory is called the "The Tommy Westphall Universe" and hinges on a reveal at the finale of "St. The 50 greatest TV and movie detectives of all time. Elsewhere., It was as far as they could go, he said. Elsewhere. They really wanted to kill the show. The John Larroquette Show once mentioned Yoyodyne, a manufacturing client of law firm Wolfram and Hart; After the "Fansville" characters exchange meta-humorous existential comments, the camera pans out to show that the characters in fact exist in a snowglobe sitting on Larry Culpepper's desk. A Weyland-Yutani ship is seen in the BBC series Red Dwarf, which also depicted The Doctors TARDIS. So far, the included shows span from "I Love Lucy" in 1951, to today, with 26 listed shows still on the air. Elsewhere characters Dr. Roxanne Turner (Alfre Woodard) and Dr. Victor Ehrlich (Ed Begley Jr.) appeared on Homicide: Life on the Street. Elsewhere's final episode, "The Last One", one interpretation of which is that the entire St. Syndication used to be the method by which we would see old scripted shows, and a shows rep needed to be good enough for you to stop flipping channels if you happened to land on an episode (ooh! The attitude was, Nothing can get us down, as bad as it is. And it was bad all the time.. This 40-year-old show looks like that nurses job in that ER, and the characters coping mechanisms and responses to trauma may be dramatized, but they arent implausible. ER and Chicago Hope wouldnt exist in the form they did without St. Mandels character, though, gets the easiest metaphor of the episode. Observers of the theory take issue with the idea out of what they deem is a misunderstanding of an authors intent. characters got the business from Carla while drinking at Cheers, the bar from, uh, , a spinoff, must also exist somewhere in that snow globe. Inside the globe was a tiny mock-up of St. Eligius, the medical center that was featured in the series. Through crossovers, spinoffs, cameos, or fictional brands or products appearing in more than one show, everything from Brooklyn Nine Nine and Law & Order to Everybody Hates Chris and Dr. Who were arguably all dreamed up by young Tommy. Elsewhere, and I venture to say stuff like House or Scrubs, or even Greys Anatomy would not look or feel the same without its influence and success. Specific to the Westphall Hypothesis, even if we accept that St. Along with U.S.-based fan Ash Crowe, Gow began to develop a chart linking the series to other shows on television. Stack Exchange network consists of 181 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. When directing episodes for the eighth series of the revived Doctor Who in 2014, Ben Wheatley had the art department create a replica of Tommy Westphall's snowglobe, which Wheatley placed in the TARDIS set as a reference to the hypothesis. Elsewhere illustrates the rich and often blurred boundaries in how we experience the world."[7]. Elsewhere to Homicide: Life on the Street, which shared a writer/producer in Tom Fontana. As of this writing, 441 shows can be tied to St. In the moments before hes expected to announce the fate of the hospital, Auschlander suffers a catastrophic stroke off-screen and is discovered dead, with the cast gathering for a mournful goodbye. Although you may have never noticed the connection, there's a compelling case that "Friends," "Breaking Bad," "Seinfeld," "I Love Lucy" and just about every other popular American television show exist within the same universe. , like basically every television series that is set in the present day, had crossover episodes or cameos with other popular shows. When NBCs hour-long hospital drama St. Elsewhere writer Tom Fontana was quoted as saying "Someone did the math once and something like 90 percent of all [American] television took place in Tommy Westphall's mind. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. It's safe to say that the final episode, specifically the end scene, of St. To me the last 10 minutes of the final episode of St. Helen Hunt even appeared in a few episodes. It's not every day we see Plucky Comic Relief commit suicide. Elsewhere team enjoyed life on the series even when times were tough, which was always. To me the last 10 minutes of the final Michael Kennedy is an avid movie and TV fan that's been working for Screen Rant in various capacities since 2014. I sure heard about it. It was not right for us to say, You should lose more money. . God love him."[9]. Why did Sonny trust Carlo enough to introduce him to the family and then sour on him? I think the final years story line reflected it, she said, referring to the takeover and makeover of St. Eligius by a wealthy corporation at the outset of the final season. Then the Birdman decides he's fed up with being in the mental ward and wants to fly away from the hospital, so he jumps off the roof. Elsewhere signed off after six seasons on May 25, 1988, more than a few viewers were saddened. Like St. Eligius itself, St. A surprise to everybody. I think itll have another life, he said, smiling enigmatically. Related: Crisis On Infinite Earths Solved DC Movies' Continuity Problem. Elsewhere production team are at work on Tattingers, a new NBC series from MTM slated for St. The one where EW follows up with the cast. Browse other questions tagged, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site. So what happens when an ending goes completely off the rails? Gow said, "I've heard from TV writers who deliberately put in references to draw their shows into Tommy's mind. He sits there, all day long, in his own world, staring at that toy. In that time, Michael has written over 2000 articles for the site, first working solely as a news writer, then later as a senior writer and associate news editor. When we read it, we all had reservations about it. WebTommy Westphall, portrayed by Chad Allen, is a minor character from the drama television series St. St elsewhere ending theory. He went on to create the acclaimed seriesHomicide:Life on the Street (in which a character fromSt. They always tried to be out there, beyond the limits of what was being done before. Elsewhere to another series likely has additional connections of its own and for a sterling example of this, look no further thanHomicide. [3][5][6] According to Lindsey Freeman, the narrative framing of Tommy's imagination as within a snow globe occurs because, as an "oneiric and mnemonic gadget", a snow globe "often finds itself as a companion piece to the dream sequences found in television and movies". That series introduced the character of Detective John Munch (Richard Belzer), who went on to become a main character onLaw and Order:Special Victims Unit (and has made guest appearances in virtually everyLaw and Order series), and who has also popped up on shows likeThe Beat, The Wire, The X-Files, Arrested Development,and30 Rock. Syndication used to be the method by which we would see old scripted shows, and a shows rep needed to be good enough for you to stop flipping channels if you happened to land on an episode (. The thing Im proudest of is the overall balance of the comedy to the drama; the counterpoint of that really grew and grew.. If you've ever been riveted by the human drama ofE.R. "For 'St. The common thread running through the last season (besides a consistent plot about a special new artificial heart) is that St. Eligius is probably going to close, right around the same time the hospitals residents (read: the younger main cast members) are all ending their residencies and about to head out into the depressing world of medicine. Elsewhere were dreamt by Tommy Westphall, and thus, products of his imagination. [3] An exterior camera shot of the hospital cuts to Tommy Westphall sitting in the living room of an apartment building alongside his grandfather, now being portrayed by Norman Lloyd (aka "Daniel Auschlander"). "Red Dwarf" is now included as well. Elsewhere,' It's Goodbye (or Is It?) Fiscus (Mandel), Morrison (Morse) and Ehrlich (Begley) are all dealing with their own issues around their impending exits. Elsewhere to end the way it did? Its simultaneously a lot of what I find fun about the inside baseball or meta commentary on TV, and also most of what I hate about it. Why was it necessary for St. this link is to an external site that may or may not meet accessibility guidelines. But the notion isn't necessarily dependent on Tommy imagining anything: The connections still exist, whether they're considered a dream within fiction or just an interconnected television universe. A FL native, Michael is passionate about pop culture, and earned an AS degree in film production in 2012. 2023 Paste Media Group. Most of us failed. But for others, it was a stroke of inspiration. Executive producer Bruce Paltrow explained that the show cost MTM more to produce than what NBC paid to broadcast it--which is common--but that because the outlook for recouping those deficits through syndicated reruns is so bleak, the company didnt consider another year of expenditures worth its while. But the series managed to survive for six years on a powerful drug called demographics: The show attracted a relatively small but highly desirable audience of young, affluent viewers, and that in turn attracted plenty of advertising dollars to NBC. In an interview withPaley Matters in 2018, Fontana who co-wrote the finale expressed his ongoing surprise and weird sense of pride at how that final scene has, well, snowballed into the mother of all pop culture fan theories. Thanks to the phenomenal success of the MCU, shared universes now dot the pop culture landscape, including the DCEU, The Conjuring universe, the Godzilla and King Kong MonsterVerse, and many more. Elsewhere an autistic boy is shown to have imagined and created a vast and deeply human universe. If a person dreams about visiting London and meeting Gordon Brown, it does not follow that because the city of London and Gordon Brown appeared in a dream, they do not exist in real life. This has led to dozens of shows using the same fake product, so in terms of the chart, "that's become an increasingly complex can of worms," said Crowe. Some people liked its provocativeness. I thought I knew what it meant, but it was so weird, especially for my younger mind, so I went running down the hallway and grabbed my mom and I was like, You have to read this. As Gow told HuffPost, "St. But I think now weve got the toe tag on, and were in the drawer, and its sealed and locked., St. Heres how St. This is not likely the case (I'm not going to search for links to autism websites for this answer), but for writers looking for some weird ending for their show (other than "it was all a dream"), the idea of a child imagining the world of St. The series finale of the 1980s medical dramedy St. Just some of the other series that have ended up connected as part of the Tommy Westphall universe include Community, Seinfeld, Person of Interest, Malcolm in the Middle, and Married with Children. Making a splash: A deep dive into the live-action Little Mermaid with a new generation's Ariel. Elsewhere signed off after six seasons on May 25, 1988, more than a few viewers were saddened. It was all a dream! There are two very important reasons why the ending is not only justified but important and even critically needed for a show like St. You can and should thank Keith Gow and Ash Crowe for being the keepers of this theory for over a decade, managing what has become the official website. When NBCs hour-long hospital drama St. And I'm beat. Its been observed that much of American primetime TV has been about cops and the sex lives of doctors. "The discussion began on alt.tv.homicide, a newsgroup that discussed Homicide: Life on the Street," Gow tells Mental Floss. It is underfunded, understaffed, crowded, and running on fumes. Tell me if you think it means what I think it means! My mom read it, and she looked at me sort of puzzled too and said, I think it means its all in your head? I said, Thats what I thought it think it means! So I knew that it was really cool, and I loved that. sign-off. The series sported a large ensemble cast, with veteran actors Ed Flanders and Norman Lloyd anchoring the proceedings for most of its run as Dr. Donald Westphall and Dr. Daniel Auschlander, respectively, and it made household names of up-and-comers like Howie Mandel, Mark Harmon, and Denzel Washington, as well. Erasing the fiction of an entire medium is not what Tom Fontana had planned. Entertainment Weekly may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Gow and Crowe have an elaborate system of rules for what shows can and can't be included in the list, which they shared with HuffPost and can now be seen on their site's latest update. Elsewhere remains one of the most famous examples of the "all just a dream" plot. St. Other people didnt care for it at all. Web359. "I prefer character connections, myself," Gow says. It only takes a minute to sign up. It was all a dream! The show was a proving ground for actors you have seen in a million things before or since: Denzel Washington and Howie Mandel were easily the most recognizable, but there were also ringers like Mark Harmon, David Morse, Ed Begley Jr., Bruce Greenwood, Ronny Cox, and not only Mr. Feeny himself (William Daniels), but his wife (real and fictional) Bonnie Bartlett. One of the producers on St. St. Halle Bailey, Melissa McCarthy, and director Rob Marshall share the tale behind making their underwater musical with a groundbreaking Disney princess. Brian Weatherson, professor of philosophy at Cornell University, wrote a piece, "Six Objections to the Westphall Hypothesis", which challenges the logical, factual, and philosophical basis for the existence of the "universe".[10]. You can follow him on Twitter and read more at his blog. The elder Westphall returns home, but he's not dressed in scrubs he's wearing a hard hat, and his conversation with Auschlander (whom he addresses as "Pop") implies that he's a construction worker. The shows cast had seen ups and downs, additions and subtractions in its time, with Flanders character Westphall eventually stepping down as the hospitals head to become a doctor there. Beyond the theoretical connections, it's possible that the 419 affected shows all exist within the dream of an autistic boy from the show, "St. Cookies help us deliver our Services. It is underfunded, understaffed, crowded, and running on fumes. Elsewhere" writer Tom Fontana began writing connections between his shows using fictional products and companies. I can't find any justification for ending the show this way, other than the writers wanted to end the show on a twist ending, rather than just another typical ending.

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