One prominent critic, Professor Brian Weatherson, argues that just because St. It was this wonderful, crumbly, noble, decadent building that housed this incredible heart. But I wasnt surprised that there were many people who didnt find it satisfying. While that can sometimes describe St. It couldve been 900 things, which is very clever because you were allowed to make up your minds so you could stay with your own fantasy so everybody could have an opinion. Scan this QR code to download the app now. 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. Elsewhere. 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. What world is Tommy imagining inside that snow globe, he wonders aloud. [3][4] The following exchange occurs: Grandfather: "Good. Elsewhere" finale was the first big "it was all just a dream" finale, ending with the revelation that St. Eligius hospital and its staff were all the creations of 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. ", Father: "I don't understand this autism thing, Pop. In the last episode's final two scenes, Donald Westphall having just returned to St. Eligius is shown in Dr. Auschlander's office pondering the recent death from stroke of his colleague and mentor. WebYet, in the ending of St. There are oodles of ways to end a TV series. 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. I think it can happen. Make Room For Daddy takes out I Love Lucy.. But I thought it was wonderful. 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. Is all of American television the hallucination of an autistic child?? A Weyland-Yutani ship is seen in the BBC series Red Dwarf, which also depicted The Doctors TARDIS. Elsewhere was known for its Tommy's father, still being portrayed by Ed Flanders (aka "Donald Westphall") arrives at the apartment wearing a hard hat. Elsewhere storyline exists only within Westphall's imagination. As Begley added wistfully, Its never over till its over--but I think in this case, its over .. If you're viewing this list on a mobile device, use this link to the web that allows for zooming. Please feel free to submit articles to enhance the knowledge, acceptance, understanding and research of Autism and ASD. And what about the real people who have appeared on the included shows, like Alex Trebek on Cheers? What's he thinking about? Marriage! St. St. There are other possible interpretations of Tommy's "vision" which may suggest something other than the entire series being his dream. "Red Dwarf" is now included as well. Its just too big a leap. Why did DOS-based Windows require HIMEM.SYS to boot? I felt it wasnt serious. Eligius. 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. Elsewheres bumbling Dr. Victor Erlich, offered the final diagnosis of his medical career. Much of the humor between characters is gallows humor. Meme Status Submission Year 1988 Origin St. Tommy runs to see the snow falling outside the window, and that's when everything changes. 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. 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. 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.. Elsewhere, NBCs darkly comic series about a financially strapped Boston hospital and its beleaguered staff, is dead. Entertainment Weekly may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. ), 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. Fiscus (Mandel), Morrison (Morse) and Ehrlich (Begley) are all dealing with their own issues around their impending exits. What is the Russian word for the color "teal"? The theory is called the "The Tommy Westphall Universe" and hinges on a reveal at the finale of "St. I thought it was ahead of its time, pretty ingenious and creative and not like anything else. While that can sometimes describe. Wolfram and Hart had another client, Weyland-Yutani, that made a weapons display screen for Firefly; Helen Hunt even appeared in a few episodes. It seems to imply that the events of the show were all imagined by the mind of a non-verbal young boy. "The discussion began on alt.tv.homicide, a newsgroup that discussed Homicide: Life on the Street," Gow tells Mental Floss. I didnt dislike it. 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. I saw it as a show about people struggling to answer lifes ridiculous questions--sometimes they would do it in a comic way, sometimes they would do it in a serious way, said Tom Fontana, one of the shows core group of writers and producers, who served as a creative consultant this season. [1] As characters from St. What symbolic value does either the globe or the snow have on the ending of the series? 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 (. Where things get complicated is that characters from St. is not a great place to work or convalesce. 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. And in the end, Fiscus patient does finally sing. So what happens when an ending goes completely off the rails? The show also has connections to series that cameafter it, largely thanks to one of its writers and producers, Tom Fontana. 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. I really had very little to say about that episode because I thought it was a letdown. Elsewhere carries a shocking implication NBC St. Fontana wrote a fictional "Weigert Corporation" as an intergral part of both "St. 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. I thought it was terrible. In that episode, the entirety of St. In a 2003 article published on BBC News Online, St. In fact, for all its success, most aspects of St. In the closing moments of the episode, a boy named Tommy Westphall (Chad Allen), the son of medical director Dr. Donald Westphall, was seen peering into a snow globe. In the door comes Dr. Westphall, but he hangs up a construction workers hat. And none of MTMs shows better defined quality television than St. I think there was a period when last rites were being performed when we could have rallied, he said, his tone clinically matter-of-fact. World of his own. If you notice any other connections, feel free to join in on the madness. John Munch). That would surely lead to spreadsheets the size of walls: Weyland-Yutani is the company behind the machinations of the Alien franchise. Ending of "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans". 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. Elsewhere take place John Hemingway of The John Larroquette Show once called into Frasiers talk show; By using our Services, you agree to our use of cookies. But this television-changing theory doesn't stop there. Walter White and Rachel Green are no longer just characters in your pop culture-themed fantasy game of Clue, they're characters that could have bumped into each other on the street. Elsewhere episode; Cheers spawned Frasier, a character who appeared on Wings; John Munch, the detective from Homicide, had mingled with the St. Eligius crew, and he has appeared on shows ranging from The X-Files to The Wire, effectively making him the Patient Zero of what's become known as The Tommy Westphall Universe theory. This is the final scene from "The Last One", the 22nd episode (137th overall) from the sixth and final season of NBC's 1982-88 medical drama 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. 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. Elsewhere" -- the notion of which is a hated cliche, yes, but could it be the reality of almost every story arc you've ever loved on American television? Yet, none of those universes compare to the sheer enormity of the Tommy Westphall world, which traces back to the series finale of popular 1980s medical drama St. 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. Why is Frank McCourt really pushing this? A long-term member of the Screen Rant family, Michael looks forward to continuing on creating new content for the site for many more years to come. Law & Order creator Dick Wolf is close friends with Fontana and frequently crossed Homicide characters over into his own series. Its an episode of heartfelt goodbyes and dramatic exits. More than puzzling, some people found it to be an actual puzzle. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. Rather than case-of-the-week stories with infallible doctors and carboard-thin supporting characters,St. But I think now weve got the toe tag on, and were in the drawer, and its sealed and locked., St. For indeed, St. St. Elsewhere truly shook things up 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. Elsewhere to a trivial mention in Fontanas biography, if not for the curiosity of a playwright named Keith Gow. How was your day up on the building? 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. Ambiguous cut to black! I was pretty happy with it. These strings go on across multiple decades of television, with I Love Lucy being the earliest example. Of course, every party has a pooper, and there are those that consider the Tommy Westphall universe ridiculous. In another episode, St. Eligius traveled 50 years into the past. 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. For instance, it may be the other way around, and the snow globe scene may itself be the dream. Here's my son, I talk to him, I don't even know if he can hear me. You can barely please half the people most of the time. Toe-tagged. 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. Most scripted television shows end in cancellation, so theres something special about the ones that get the chance to go out on their own terms. Can I use my Coinbase address to receive bitcoin? 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. I remember reading about it in the paper that there was controversy over it. The commercial titled "Off Season" features the cast of the mock sitcom "Fansville" discussing their purpose after the conclusion of the college football season. The strange thing that occurs to me when thinking about the show was how temporary it seemed, mused Begley, who spent the last six years matching wits--and losing--with William Daniels, who played St. Eligius Hospitals cranky chief of surgery, Mark Craig. I think a lot of the cast didnt care for it at all. The finale (if youre lucky enough to ever have a planned one air) might be one of the most watched episodes in the whole run of the show and the impression that lingers in the minds of most viewers long after the show ends. Quantum Leap is on!). 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. I thought it was interesting. Is there a weapon that has the heavy property and the finesse property (or could this be obtained)? Westphall, Auschlander, and Gideon (Cox) are stressing about how they can possibly keep the hospital open. And then I saw it and I thought, Its too much. "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 were dreamt by Tommy Westphall, and thus, products of his imagination. 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. 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. ", Grandfather: "He's been sitting there ever since you left this morning, just like he does every day. Elsewhere" writer Tom Fontana began writing connections between his shows using fictional products and companies. And I'm beat. The Marvel Cinematic Universe might seem like a huge landscape of interconnected shows and TV movies, but the Tommy Westphall universe has it beat. Elsewhere by the residents and the surrounding community, the place has a reputation as a rathole. Making a splash: A deep dive into the live-action. "For 'St. He went on to create the acclaimed seriesHomicide:Life on the Street (in which a character fromSt. So far, the included shows span from "I Love Lucy" in 1951, to today, with 26 listed shows still on the air. Both shows took a grittier and more realistic approach to their drama. The last year, I put in a rug and a lamp. If Cheers is not real, then is Trebek? Elsewhere were more demonstrative and understanding of autistic people then all 12 seasons of The Big Bang Theory put together. Review/Television; Ed Flanders as Dr. Westphal in, "Six Objections to the Westphall Hypothesis", "Director Ben Wheatley Talks 'High-Rise', 'Doctor Who', 'Free Fire' and More at TIFF", "NewsRadio (TV Series) Daydream (1996) Trivia", Other arguments against the Tommy Westphall Universe, Association for Science in Autism Treatment, Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative, Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, Maia Chung Autism and Disabilities Foundation (Jamaica), The Accidental Teacher: Life Lessons from My Silent Son, Aspergirls: Empowering Females with Asperger's Syndrome, Freaks, Geeks, and Asperger Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Everybody Is Different: A Book for Young People Who Have Brothers or Sisters With Autism, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tommy_Westphall&oldid=1148529078, Fictional characters on the autism spectrum, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 6 April 2023, at 18:38. Was the fact that Tommy is considered Autistic symbolic in any way? I thought it was an interesting choice to make I respect [the ambition]. 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. The kind of gallows humor that was in the show was a case of art imitating life, Paltrow continued. Airing for six seasons from 1982 to 1988 on NBC,St. , the magic was in the tone, as it was with another show by the same production company. Fontanas favored conclusion was a literal apocalypse, where the staff of St. Eligius would be standing by in the year 2013 while a toxic gas cloud passed over, the result of a corporate war between foreign factions. Movies & TV Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for movie and TV enthusiasts. St. The stories speak for themselves. Elsewhere truly shook things up and gave us one of the most talked-about series finales in history with the snow globe. After watching six Emmy-nominated seasons of drama medical and emotional, dark and light, envelope-pushing and heartstring-pulling at the run-down St. Eligius, we were led to believe in the finales last scene that the entire show was actually a product of the imagination of (construction worker?) It was bold and shocking and upset some people. God love him."[9]. Kenneth Lowe is a regular contributor to Paste TV. A clip of the original credits from the series finale, with Mimsie the Cat on life support. The thing is, autism was - and still is - largely not understood what goes on in a person's brain. What were the most popular text editors for MS-DOS in the 1980s? Entertainment Weekly is a registered trademark of Meredith Corporation All Rights Reserved. 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. . The Westphall universe just keeps expanding out in that manner from there, getting bigger and bigger in the same way as a snowball rolling downhill, which is appropriate considering Tommy's snow globe. Because a lot of autistic children are withdrawn, it seems as though they're in their own world. 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. Also, consider that each connection fromSt. Why did the Fairy Queen have to die for a poor deal? St. I think itll have another life, he said, smiling enigmatically. I think reality is much more the smell of the hospital, the smell of death. Therefore, appearances from St. Though they remain philosophical about the loss of St. [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". 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. And people say, Norman, youre either mad or senile or both--but you dont get a show like St. ", Father: "Well, we finally topped off the 22nd story. Elsewhere take place within Tommy's mind, but so do numerous other television series which are directly and indirectly connected to St. If you've ever been riveted by the human drama ofE.R. To me the last 10 minutes of the final ERIC LANEUVILLE (Luther Hawkins): I look back on it now and say Well, it kinda worked. When I first saw it, I had some real reservations about it. The John Larroquette Show once mentioned Yoyodyne, a manufacturing client of law firm Wolfram and Hart; 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. We're often considered and thought of as robot-like people who have no emotions and who only see other people as objects. What positional accuracy (ie, arc seconds) is necessary to view Saturn, Uranus, beyond? That kind of anguish you just cant transmit. 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. Craig, always a prissy sort, is absolutely beside himself with the prospect that his wife Ellen is taking a job in (gasp) Ohio. Elsewhere came to an end for creative as well as financial reasons. When NBCs hour-long hospital drama St. Even if that's true though, thinking about it remains an amusing diversion. Related: Crisis On Infinite Earths Solved DC Movies' Continuity Problem. St. sign-off. Its been observed that much of American primetime TV has been about cops and the sex lives of doctors. If the show were not great, if we had not had as many nominations, we probably wouldnt even be talking about it. 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. Some people liked its provocativeness. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. At least that's the most widely held interpretation of St. A Weyland-Utani ship is also seen in a spaceship graveyard in the British sci-fi series Red Dwarf.. 7. Mandels character, though, gets the easiest metaphor of the episode. 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. If the theory holds, then a large chunk of television is the direct result of one childs formidable imagination. Elsewhere, an NBC drama about St. Eligius, a run-down Boston hospital headed by chief of staff Dr. Donald Westphall (Ed Flanders).His staff included Dr. Daniel Auschlander A terrible ending! The 50 greatest TV and movie detectives of all time. CHRISTINA PICKLES (Helen Rosenthal): I have no idea what it means. But [executive producers] Tom Fontana and John Masius and Bruce Paltrow didnt want just a normal ending. Copyright 2023 Meredith Corporation. I was only supposed to be in 18 of the 22 episodes, so I got an extra episodes pay out of it. Elsewhere, like basically every television series that is set in the present day, had crossover episodes or cameos with other popular shows. Embedded hyperlinks in a thesis or research paper. Tommy Westphall, portrayed by Chad Allen, is a minor character from the drama television series St. Inside the globe was a tiny mock-up of St. Eligius, the medical center that was featured in the series. Web359. Over time, it began to look something like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game. Elsewhere 's characters appear in Tommy's dream doesn't mean they don't also Elsewhere an autistic boy is shown to have imagined and created a vast and deeply human universe. 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. 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. Arrow is also included, which means all subsequent Arrowverse shows also tie back to Westphall.
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