
When NBC refused to finance their ambitious plan, the idea for the snow globe was hatched. 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.
#St elsewhere ending series
Elsewhere, he was openly hostile toward any idea of a reunion special down the line and insisted that the series finale should be definitive.įontana’s favored conclusion was a literal apocalypse, where the staff of St. If the theory holds, then a large chunk of television is the direct result of one child’s formidable imagination.Įrasing the fiction of an entire medium is not what Tom Fontana had planned. Elsewhere with varying degrees of separation, ranging from I Love Lucy to The Flash. 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.Īs of this writing, 441 shows can be tied to St. Elsewhere episode Cheers spawned Frasier, a character who appeared on Wings John Munch, the detective from Homicide, had mingled with the St. Elsewhere was a figment of Tommy Westphall’s elaborate imagination, then wouldn’t other television characters who appeared in the show’s continuity exist only within Tommy's mind, as well? The doctors had visited the bar on Cheers in one St. More than puzzling, some people found it to be an actual puzzle. I think other people will find it puzzling, odd, maybe unfulfilling in some way.” “I think some people will think it's extraordinary and existential and quintessential St. “I expect a very mixed reaction,” Bruce Paltrow, one of the show's executive producers, told the Chicago Tribune in 1988. (On that series, Bobby Ewing was brought back to life after his "death" turned out to be just a bad dream.) The implication was that Tommy-a character on the autism spectrum-had 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. Behind him stood his father, who was sporting a construction worker’s wardrobe. Eligius, the medical center that was featured in the series. Inside the globe was a tiny mock-up of St. Donald Westphall, was seen peering into a snow globe. In the closing moments of the episode, a boy named Tommy Westphall (Chad Allen), the son of medical director Dr. Not necessarily because the series-which had earned 13 Emmy Awards during its run-was ending, but because producers opted for a highly unconventional finale.

Elsewhere signed off after six seasons on May 25, 1988, more than a few viewers were saddened.
