Elsewhere is not a great place to work or convalesce. It was all a dream! Fox doesnt think hell live to be 80: Every day its tougher. When I read it, I thought it was amazing: Only these people could come up with this idea And I thought it was very touching. For indeed, St. The suggestion is that the entire series was a product of Tommy Westphall's imagination but if that's true, then what it implies is nothing short of jaw-dropping. Elsewhere with varying degrees of separation, ranging from I Love Lucy to The Flash. Through crossovers, spinoffs, cameos, or fictional brands or products appearing in more than one show, everything from. "[Fontana] was fond of putting in references to previous shows he worked on, including bringing characters from St. "St. That is quite a choice. They did very unusual, bold things and did it regularly. MARK HARMON (Dr. Robert Caldwell): I didnt see it live. Fontana was the executive producer and showrunner for Homicide for its entire seven years. The implication was that Tommya character on the autism spectrumhad imagined the entire show, a fiction-within-the-fiction conceit that had angered viewers during the infamous dream season arc on Dallas five years earlier. Here's my son, I talk to him, I don't even know if he can hear me. We went through this experience and I wanted it to be maintained as a real one, not a dream. The Westphall Theory of a Unified TV Universe, Explained 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? The Birdman of St. 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. 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. Somehow, a literal airplane has crashed into the hospital. 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,' It's Goodbye (or Is It?) Closing the Curtain on 'St. Elsewhere' Operation - Los Angeles When NBCs hour-long hospital drama St. Elsewhere signed off after six seasons on May 25, 1988, more than a few viewers were saddened. Not necessarily because the serieswhich had earned 13 Emmy Awards during its runwas ending, but because producers opted for a highly unconventional finale. I think reality is much more the smell of the hospital, the smell of death. St. While that can sometimes describe. Elsewhere visited the Cheers bar, the creators of Cheers offered no consent to have their series thought of as imaginary. The series was also known for one of its more playful aspects: it was prone to dropping references and callbacks to other TV series. Elsewhere to Homicide: Life on the Street, which shared a writer/producer in Tom Fontana. THE TOMMY WESTPHALL UNIVERSE As Begley added wistfully, Its never over till its over--but I think in this case, its over .. 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. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. Theres also nothing standing in the way of the belief that perhaps the Tommy Westphall end sequence was itself a dream, negating the snow globe conceit. Its been observed that much of American primetime TV has been about cops and the sex lives of doctors. Elsewhere were dreamt by Tommy Westphall, and thus, products of his imagination. It was bold and shocking and upset some people. Elsewhere, Ed Begley Jr., St. It made me laugh actually because it just is so like those guys. Inside it is a perfect replica of St. Eligius, with snow swirling around it as the shot fades to black. As the episode comes to a close, Dr. Westphall is sitting alone in the office of his friend and mentor Dr. Auschlander, who has recently died when in runs his son, Tommy (Chad Allen), a quiet, autistic boy whom viewers had met a time or two before. Through it all, time skips are marked off by a digital clock readout in the corner, and its the lightest touch that makes a world of difference in how the show goes over, marking the endless grind the characters face in tangible hours and minutes. 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. The "St. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. Elsewhere., It was as far as they could go, he said. Elsewhere, including all its characters, are revealed to have been the dream of a minor character named Tommy Westphall, an autistic boy who possesses a snow globe containing a replica of the hospital where the series took place. Elsewhere finale wasn't infamous enough with its twist ending, the closing bumper made for the finale showed Mimsie, the logo cat, unconscious and hooked up to an IV, 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. Paltrow noted that the shows bleak vision was deliberate. sign-off. Erasing the fiction of an entire medium is not what Tom Fontana had planned. 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. (referring to Tommy) He give you any trouble? Weatherson's fifth objection holds that the appearance of a person or event in a dream does not mean the person or event cannot exist in real life. I think the reality of a hospital is much worse. 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. ", Grandfather: "He's been sitting there ever since you left this morning, just like he does every day. 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. WebTommy Westphall, portrayed by Chad Allen, is a minor character from the drama television series St. St elsewhere ending theory. The Importance of the St. Elsewhere Ending : r/autism Elsewhere by the residents and the surrounding community, the place has a reputation as a rathole. As far as I could tell, there was always controversy around St. 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. But I thought it was wonderful. Birth! Elsewhere also shared characters with The White Shadow and Its Garry Shandlings Show, McDuffie wrote. Elsewhere, the magic was in the tone, as it was with another show by the same production company, Hill Street Blues. Revisiting St. Elsewhere's Strange Snow Globe Series Finale What's he thinking about?". That is Both shows took a grittier and more realistic approach to their drama. Elsewhere airs at 10 p.m. on Channels 4, 36 and 39. , the magic was in the tone, as it was with another show by the same production company. Where things get complicated is that characters from St. ), Fontana did, however, recall that half of the viewer mail retrieved after the finale was positive, while the other half made loose reference to a desire to burn [the studio lot] to the ground.". 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. A few shows are outside of American television such as the British show, "Red Dwarf." If NBC had started paying us more money, they would have had to start giving a lot of other people more money, too. Web359. The fictional Morley cigarettes are particularly pervasive, as is Hudson University, an institution of higher learning mentioned on The Cosby Show, Law & Order, and Murder, She Wrote. Observers of the theory take issue with the idea out of what they deem is a misunderstanding of an authors intent. The shows one truly lasting and iconic Elsewhere was the designated comic relief for the first few episodes. He gets Tommy up to wash up for dinner, and as he puts the snow globe on the TV set, the camera zooms in. The series finale of the 1980s medical dramedy St. I think a lot of the cast didnt care for it at all. ", Tommy, who is shaking a snow globe,[5] is told by his father to come and wash his hands. Therefore, appearances from St. Elsewhere storyline exists only within Westphall's imagination. 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, . Since Dr. Turner and Dr. Ehrlich are figments of Tommys imagination that means when they visit the Homicide universe, that it too is part of Tommys world. St. So Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., Mayberry R.F.D., and Make Room for Daddy/The Danny Thomas Show are gone. A Weyland-Yutani ship is seen in the BBC series Red Dwarf, which also depicted The Doctors TARDIS. It's safe to say that the final episode, specifically the end scene, of St. At one point I was the answer for a Trivial Pursuit question. (On that series, Bobby Ewing was brought back to life after his "death" turned out to be just a bad dream. characters got the business from Carla while drinking at Cheers, the bar from, uh, , a spinoff, must also exist somewhere in that snow globe. St. 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, 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). 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. Crowe told HuffPost that if they were to start over today, they'd exclude fictional products as being the basis for counting a crossover, explaining, "since we started this, there's apparently been a real consolidation in fake-prop companies.". 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. He sits there, all day long, in his own world, staring at that toy. Related: Crisis On Infinite Earths Solved DC Movies' Continuity Problem. Elsewhere cast reunion: It was a show that changed television, 'St. Ending of "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans". In 1988, though, St. ), At Willie Nelson 90, country, rock and rap stars pay tribute, but Willie and Trigger steal the show, Concertgoer lets out a loud full body orgasm while L.A. Phil plays Tchaikovskys 5th, Jerry Springer kept his aggressive cancer a family secret in his final months, James Corden gets a star-studded send-off on his final Late Late Show, Kim Kardashian is catching shade from Patti LuPone and Sharon Stone for AHS casting, Jonathan Majors accuser gets full temporary protection order ahead of court date, Review: The Russo brothers spy thriller Citadel has plenty of action and little else. Marriage! And Howie got so mad, because I got paid for a full episode, and all I had to do was lie on a slab for five seconds. 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.". 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. 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. I thought it was ahead of its time, pretty ingenious and creative and not like anything else. Specific to the Westphall Hypothesis, even if we accept that St. Elsewhere, Paltrow said he remains hopeful that the reruns will find a home someday, on cable if not on broadcast stations.
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