Mandels character, though, gets the easiest metaphor of the episode. Elsewhere, Alfre Woodard's Dr. Roxanne Turner,appeared) andOz (in which a company that briefly owned St. Eligius, Weigert, makes a bid to buy that show's Oswald Maximum Security Prison). As Gow and Crowe assembled their chart, comics writer Dwayne McDuffie (Static Shock) wrote a blog entry for Slush.com in 2002 that made a similar observation. ED BEGLEY JR. (Dr. Victor Ehrlich): It was quite fitting for what they had done the previous six years. Westphall, Auschlander, and Gideon (Cox) are stressing about how they can possibly keep the hospital open. 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. The show also has connections to series that cameafter it, largely thanks to one of its writers and producers, Tom Fontana. It's not even that much of a leap to make a connection to the Mighty Marvel Cinematic Universe (you can get there a number of ways, according to Polygon). Entertainment Weekly may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Elsewhere to Homicide: Life on the Street, which shared a writer/producer in Tom Fontana. 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. Elsewhere through fictional crossovers and spin-offs, resulting in a large fictional universe taking place entirely within Tommy's mind. WebBasically the theory known as The Tommy Westphall Universe (TWU) begins when St. Elsewhere also shared characters with The White Shadow and Its Garry Shandlings Show, McDuffie wrote. The original decision to include fictional product crossovers actually comes from the origins of the chart itself. This means that all of those series and other media thatthey referenced in-universe, which in the case ofThe Simpsons is ridiculously extensive technically take place in the same universe asSt. The problem that I see with the ending is that they explained away the whole show as the daydreams of an autistic child's imagination. Why is it shorter than a normal address? The Marvel Cinematic Universe might seem like a huge landscape of interconnected shows and TV movies, but the Tommy Westphall universe has it beat. The doctors had visited the bar on Cheers in one St. I thought it was an interesting choice to make I respect [the ambition]. At one point. Elsewhere visited the Cheers bar, the creators of Cheers offered no consent to have their series thought of as imaginary. From the mind of a young person whose fantasies were coming to life before him, it was neat. Helen Hunt even appeared in a few episodes. And people say, Norman, youre either mad or senile or both--but you dont get a show like St. St. What's the cheapest way to buy out a sibling's share of our parents house if I have no cash and want to pay less than the appraised value? It is underfunded, understaffed, crowded, and running on fumes. Elsewhere, NBCs darkly comic series about a financially strapped Boston hospital and its beleaguered staff, is dead. The complete list of shows is at the bottom of the article. , the magic was in the tone, as it was with another show by the same production company. Because a lot of autistic children are withdrawn, it seems as though they're in their own world. He gets Tommy up to wash up for dinner, and as he puts the snow globe on the TV set, the camera zooms in. Theyre more interested in the colossal mind-fuck that is the Tommy Westphall Universe. But now, viewers are picking shows out to binge watch, and they want to know that their time investment is going to have some payoff. All Rights Reserved, In the age of streaming in particular, I feel as if this is even more true than its been in the past. . Rather than case-of-the-week stories with infallible doctors and carboard-thin supporting characters,St. The hospital at its center, Boston's fictional St. Eligius, picked up its titular nickname because of its reputation as an aging, poorly-staffed dumping ground for hopeless patients, and the show's urgent, fly-on-the-wall visual style added to its air of gritty realism. 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. 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. It was bold and shocking and upset some people. (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. Dr Pepper includes an homage to Tommy Westphall's snowglobe in its 2021 advertising campaign. Elsewhere was a solid drama that gave a boatload of great actors some steady work for a few years, but it will always be a peculiar show for that final detail. It was this wonderful, crumbly, noble, decadent building that housed this incredible heart. The St. Elsewhere was a figment of Tommy Westphalls elaborate imagination, then wouldnt other television characters who appeared in the shows continuity exist only within Tommy's mind, as well? Making a splash: A deep dive into the live-action Little Mermaid with a new generation's Ariel. 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. WebTommy Westphall, portrayed by Chad Allen, is a minor character from the drama television series St. St elsewhere ending theory. That is quite a choice. They did very unusual, bold things and did it regularly. This ending was not serious to me. The original decision to include fictional product crossovers actually comes from the origins of the chart itself. As Gow told HuffPost, "St. Elsewhere" writer Tom Fontana began writing connections between his shows using fictional products and companies. "St. Gow, a resident of Melbourne, Australia, spent time in pubs and online wondering what Tommys scene meant for every show connected to St. (referring to Tommy) He give you any trouble? 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. Due to crossovers and shared universes between shows, almost every popular TV show exists within the dream of one character from the '80s. Elsewhere; by extension this hypothesis can be extended to include the science fiction program The X-Files and the Law & Order franchise (due to various crossovers with characters from Homicide, in particular Det. The John Larroquette Show once mentioned Yoyodyne, a manufacturing client of law firm Wolfram and Hart; Elsewhere, Ed Begley Jr., St. Yet, in the ending of St. At least that's the most widely held interpretation of St. You can barely please half the people most of the time. They really wanted to kill the show. This expands the Tommy Westphall universe ever outward, to the point where over 400 shows now reside under its umbrella. At one point I was the answer for a Trivial Pursuit question. 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. 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. 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. Why did the Fairy Queen have to die for a poor deal? Therefore, appearances from St. [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"). 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. Tommy runs to see the snow falling outside the window, and that's when everything changes. The notion that appearances by the same character in two or more series tie those series together in the same fictional universe is also problematic. Mimsie the Cat has seen better days. I went, Wow. 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. Elsewhere truly shook things up Elsewhere, like basically every television series that is set in the present day, had crossover episodes or cameos with other popular shows. 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. Elsewhere. The last year, I put in a rug and a lamp. I actually have an easy answer for that - assuming that the 'real world' has shows like Cheers and MASH on TV, it's entirely plausible that Tommy took characters from those shows after seeing them on TV and made them part of his imagination. So Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., Mayberry R.F.D., and Make Room for Daddy/The Danny Thomas Show are gone. Where things get complicated is that characters from St. Elsewhere, Paltrow, Fontana and the several cast members interviewed all said they would have been willing to continue indefinitely. ", Father: "I don't understand this autism thing, Pop. St. It was highly unpredictable, just like every episode. I think other people will find it puzzling, odd, maybe unfulfilling in some way.. The first episode of a show has to hook viewers in for the long haul in a way totally unlike, say, the first pages of a novel. DAVID MORSE (Dr. Jack Boomer Morrison): I felt two things. 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 (. Much of the humor between characters is gallows humor. Seated in a rocking chair is none other than Dr. Auschlander only that's not quite right. We're often considered and thought of as robot-like people who have no emotions and who only see other people as objects. Entertainment Weekly is a registered trademark of Meredith Corporation All Rights Reserved. "Red Dwarf" is now included as well. I think it can happen. But because we set a bar, it was just hard to really top that I wish I could say that I loved it. 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. Those two impressive achievements would have likely relegated the bizarre ending of St. To me the last 10 minutes of the final The series is (implied to be) a figment of Tommy Westphall's imagination, existing in the snowglobe that he is focused on. Related: Crisis On Infinite Earths Solved DC Movies' Continuity Problem. And I was very upset. 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. "The discussion began on alt.tv.homicide, a newsgroup that discussed Homicide: Life on the Street," Gow tells Mental Floss. Other people didnt care for it at all. Learn more about Stack Overflow the company, and our products. And Ed Flanders, who portrayed Dr. Donald Westphall, made his last appearance before leaving the regular cast early this season (he returns in the final episode) by mooning the camera. Canceled. Birth! At the end of the ride it was now up to us to put effort into understanding other people, by showing compassion for an autistic boy. He adds that, "while a controversial and maddening ending for some loyal viewers, the final episode of St. It made me smile when I heard about what they did because it was so them. Lloyd also enjoyed the priest who heard confession in a toilet stall (I mean, that was wild--I never thought that would get on), a nude surgery sequence based on Scandinavian medical practices and a scene in which Auschlander discussed sexual awakening with a frightened boy. That fictional firm appears inDoctor Who, Red Dwarf, and of course, theAlien feature film franchise. If you've ever been riveted by the human drama ofE.R. [11], NewsRadio episode "Daydream" (season 3 episode 7) ends with Jimmy James staring into a snow globe that appears to contain a miniature version of the WNYX office, thus seeming to indicate that Jimmy James has imagined the entire episode.[12]. St. NBC Entertainment President Brandon Tartikoff is fond of defining quality television as something that starts with low ratings and ends with a cat meowing--a reference to programs produced by MTM Enterprises, which end with a kitten logo in a sly takeoff on MGMs roaring lion. The theory is called the "The Tommy Westphall Universe" and hinges on a reveal at the finale of "St. Elsewhere. 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. Elsewhere were more demonstrative and understanding of autistic people then all 12 seasons of The Big Bang Theory put together. St. That is I was only supposed to be in 18 of the 22 episodes, so I got an extra episodes pay out of it. Like their small but loyal band of viewers--who have already written at least 300 letters to MTM and the network protesting its cancellation--the St. Flashforward! Ending of "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans". Not necessarily because the serieswhich had earned 13 Emmy Awards during its runwas ending, but because producers opted for a highly unconventional finale. Westphall sits down next to Tommy and says, "I don't understand this autism thing, Pop. It was all a dream! The thing Im proudest of is the overall balance of the comedy to the drama; the counterpoint of that really grew and grew.. The series was also known for one of its more playful aspects: it was prone to dropping references and callbacks to other TV series. Another reason for the importance of this ending is the nature of what we were shown. Law & Order creator Dick Wolf is close friends with Fontana and frequently crossed Homicide characters over into his own series. A few shows are outside of American television such as the British show, "Red Dwarf." The kind of gallows humor that was in the show was a case of art imitating life, Paltrow continued. Behind him stood his father, who was sporting a construction workers wardrobe. WebThere are oodles of ways to end a TV series. Contemporary television writers have even bought in to Gow and Crowe's theory. 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. "You know, I still have the snow globe," he said. They always tried to be out there, beyond the limits of what was being done before. But now, viewers are picking shows out to binge watch, and they want to know that their time investment is going to have some payoff. Somehow, a literal airplane has crashed into the hospital. Fontana went on to create Homicide: Life on the Street and HBOs groundbreaking prison drama Oz. What's he thinking about?". Elsewhere have dropped out of the cultural lexicon entirelyexcept for one. Fox doesnt think hell live to be 80: Every day its tougher. Airing for six seasons from 1982 to 1988 on NBC,St. WebYet, in the ending of St. The series finale of the 1980s medical dramedy St. This year, Ken Lowe is revisiting some of the most influential TV shows that made it to an officially planned final episode. 59K views 4 years ago. 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. CLARIFICATION: This article originally included a quote that incorrectly stated all of the non-American shows in the list. Elsewhere signed off after six seasons on May 25, 1988, more than a few viewers were saddened. Erasing the fiction of an entire medium is not what Tom Fontana had planned. St. Eligius is a teaching hospital in Bostons South End (the building that appears in the title sequence is actually an apartment building there). Tommy's father, still being portrayed by Ed Flanders (aka "Donald Westphall") arrives at the apartment wearing a hard hat. If the show were not great, if we had not had as many nominations, we probably wouldnt even be talking about it. This is because it's pretty easy to connectSt. Suddenly, we're taken to a small apartment where Tommy sits on the floor, playing with a snow globe. According toMental Floss,that series once mentioned a firm called Yoyodyne, which also was a client of a fictional law firm Wolfram and Hart, which appeared in theBuffy the Vampire Slayer spin-offAngel. St. WebIf the St. Elsewhere was a show that got by largely on the strength of its ensemble, running for six seasons from 1982-88. While that can sometimes describe St. Elsewhere's final moments. And because we were never a hit, we didnt have the firepower behind us to make the syndication business., Paltrow said he bears no grudge against the network or MTM for terminating St. Elsewhere an autistic boy is shown to have imagined and created a vast and deeply human universe. Why did Sonny trust Carlo enough to introduce him to the family and then sour on him? 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. Elsewhere was a solid drama that gave a boatload of great actors some steady work for a few years, but it will always be a peculiar show for that final detail. Elsewhere cast reunion: It was a show that changed television, 'St. Death! Elsewhere seemed like an easy out. The Birdman of St. As they leave the living room, Tommy's father places the snow globe upon a television set. 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. Fontana was being facetious (we think), but not everyone was as enthused with the premise. Elsewhere is Westphall's dream, it does not imply that all of the characters on the show exist only in his mind. Though MTM hasnt had much luck yet syndicating St. Please feel free to submit articles to enhance the knowledge, acceptance, understanding and research of Autism and ASD. A surprise to everybody. In fact, for all its success, most aspects of St. Illustration by HuffPost's Alissa Scheller. John Hemingway of The John Larroquette Show once called into Frasiers talk show; You can follow any one of these connective threads down a series of increasingly convoluted rabbit holes, and it probably won't surprise you to learn that a number of fans have done exactly that. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. "That really solidifies things. As for the snow globe, that was the focus of Tommy's attention. The corporation that bought St. The best music, movies, TV, books, comedy and more. "For 'St. There are two very important reasons why the ending is not only justified but important and even critically needed for a show like St. 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. Fontana was the executive producer and showrunner for Homicide for its entire seven years. 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. He also loves both Marvel and DC movies, and wishes every superhero fan could just get along. 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. St. ", Tommy, who is shaking a snow globe,[5] is told by his father to come and wash his hands. Elsewhere" that the whole show had been in the character Westphall's dream. Ambiguous cut to black! In 1988, though, St. This will become important very shortly. STEPHEN FURST (Dr. Elliot Axelrod): I thought it was kind of cool, actually. Elsewhere characters got the business from Carla while drinking at Cheers, the bar from, uh, Cheersand therefore, Frasier, a spinoff, must also exist somewhere in that snow globe. Though they remain philosophical about the loss of St. The Tommy Westphall universe hypothesis is an idea discussed among some television fans, it makes the claim that not only does St. Six years . Its been observed that much of American primetime TV has been about cops and the sex lives of doctors. 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. , like basically every television series that is set in the present day, had crossover episodes or cameos with other popular shows. Fiscus (Mandel), Morrison (Morse) and Ehrlich (Begley) are all dealing with their own issues around their impending exits. Elsewhere to another series likely has additional connections of its own and for a sterling example of this, look no further thanHomicide. There are oodles of ways to end a TV series. He went on to create the acclaimed seriesHomicide:Life on the Street (in which a character fromSt. With the aria "Chi il bel sogno di Doretta" (Doretta's Beautiful Dream) from Puccini's opera La Rondine playing, Tommy Westphall enters the office and runs to the window, where he looks at the snow falling outside St. Eligius. I felt it wasnt serious. Elsewhere was never a huge ratings hit, but it had a loyal following, won awards, and remained well-regarded in the years following its final curtain call. And they figured out a way: Okay, we wont have any reunions, nothing like that. 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. wouldnt exist in the form they did without. As Gow told HuffPost, "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. Elsewhere ' s series finale features momentous changes for several main characters, including the departures of Drs. Was the fact that Tommy is considered Autistic symbolic in any way? ). 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. Proponents of the Tommy Westphall Universe argue that because of this fictional crossover, the two series exist within the same fictional universe, and within Tommy Westphall's mind because of the final episode of St. The "St. Elsewhere made guest appearances on another TV series, and characters from that series in turn appeared on other series. Elsewhere had been a product of Tommy Westphall's (an autistic boy) imagination, with elements of the above scene used as its own evidence. [3][4] The following exchange occurs: Grandfather: "Good. [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". Inside the globe was a tiny mock-up of St. Eligius, the medical center that was featured in the series. On this day in 1988, TV viewers saw one of the most famous and perhaps the most debated series finales in TV history. The stories speak for themselves. We cant take that jump from seeing these people, Norman, Ed [Flanders] and Bill [Daniels], and this young boy for six years, and suddenly were supposed to believe that theyre these other people. 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. For instance, it may be the other way around, and the snow globe scene may itself be the dream. Elsewhere 's characters appear in Tommy's dream doesn't mean they don't also But of course, none of that is what people really remember the last episode for. We all knew that whenever you do the last episode of any series, the last chapter of any story like that, youre never going to come up with an ending that will satisfy everybody. Observers of the theory take issue with the idea out of what they deem is a misunderstanding of an authors intent. Tommy Westphall, portrayed by Chad Allen, is a minor character from the drama television series St. Is it safe to publish research papers in cooperation with Russian academics. If it were just a solid hospital show, it would be a popular back catalog binge watch, but its a part of TV history for two reasons: its novel approach to the hospital drama, and. 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. He sits there, all day long, in his own world, staring at that toy. 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. Marriage! All of it, McDuffie said, proved his own Grand Unification Theory that everyone and everything seen on TVexcept for the few minutes viewers spent with Tommy Westphall in May 1988is just a daydream. A Weyland-Yutani ship is seen in the BBC series Red Dwarf, which also depicted The Doctors TARDIS. In the final scene of the series, the camera widens out from St. Eligius, until it becomes clear the hospital is a model inside a snow globe being shaken by Tommy as he plays on the floor of a small apartment. 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.
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