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St. Elsewhere

E

Ericho

Well-Known Member
Has anyone here seen the show "St. Elsewhere"? In case you haven't, the final episode of the show reveals that the entire thing was a dream by an autistic boy named Tommy Westphall.

Here's the video
.

The funny thing is that the show had a crossover with "Homicide: Life On The Street". "Homicide: Life On The Street" was a show with a character named John Munch who appeared in at least ten different TV shows. The theory is that since HLOTS had a crossover with St. Elsewhere and John Munch was on all those shows, it means that all of them take place in the mind of this autistic character as part of the same Universe.

Weirdly enough, St. Elsewhere had a character from "Newhart" appear and the last episode of THAT show was revealed to be a dream by Bob Newhart. So...was that Tommy Westphall dreaming that or Bob Newhart? Also, all of the shows those shows had crossovers with are in the same Universe and people have linked dozens of shows through crossovers to St. Elsewhere.

The theory is that dozens of TV shows take place in this autistic boy's mind. There are others who claim HUNDREDS of shows take place. Tommy Westphall is probably the most significant fictional autistic character ever created because of this massive theory. In other words, we have Aspberger's to thank for dozens of TV shows since they were all imagined by him.

Pretty interesting, huh?
 
I think it's kind of funny to think about just how much people would be out for blood if Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad or something like that ended that way today, the tv landscape has definitely changed a lot (at least some people must have looked at the way that St. Elsewhere ended as a big middle finger to the audience though; it wasn't in the last episode, but Dallas did something a bit similar that somehow ended up not sparking a huge audience revolt).

I remember John Elder Robison mentioning this character in the book Look Me in the Eye as one of the few pop cultural depictions of an autistic person at the time that we became aware that he was on the spectrum (at age 40) and one that he didn't identify with at all.
 
I remember John Elder Robison mentioning this character in the book Look Me in the Eye as one of the few pop cultural depictions of an autistic person at the time that we became aware that he was on the spectrum (at age 40) and one that he didn't identify with at all.[/QUOTE]

Aw, dang it! I've read the book and don't remember that!

Anyway, some people have argued that Tommy Westphall simply watched the show "Homicide: Life On The Street" and imagined his characters having a crossover with them. Another counterargument is that a person can have a dream about a real life place like say, London. It doesn't mean that thing just exists in that person's imagination, it's simply that universe's version of that.

Because of this, we'll never truly know if dozens (if not hundreds) of shows take place in the mind of an autistic kid or not.
 
St. Elsewhere. Yeah. The show where Howie Mandel was always hitting on Dr. Cathy Martin downstairs in the pathology department? The one who might have been an Aspie?

st-elsewhere-barbara-whinnery-howie-mandel.jpg


Haven't thought about that show in years. Yeah. Howie had hair...
 
Oh, this is hilarious... Guess who posted that video clip on YouTube?

Ericho said:
Has anyone here seen the show "St. Elsewhere"? In case you haven't, the final episode of the show reveals that the entire thing was a dream by an autistic boy named Tommy Westphall.
Click to expand...

That's from my YouTube channel! St. Elsewhere is a "special interest" of mine. I will now shamelessly plug and link to my website, The St. Elsewhere Experience.
 
IContainMultitudes said:
I think it's kind of funny to think about just how much people would be out for blood if Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad or something like that ended that way today, the tv landscape has definitely changed a lot (at least some people must have looked at the way that St. Elsewhere ended as a big middle finger to the audience though; it wasn't in the last episode, but Dallas did something a bit similar that somehow ended up not sparking a huge audience revolt).
Click to expand...

Yes, a lot of people were pissed off by the St. Elsewhere ending, including Norman Lloyd, who played Dr. Auschlander and the "grandfather" in that scene. He felt it was a cheap cop-out.

In the case of Dallas, I think people were just relieved that they brought back Bobby and course-corrected an unpopular change in story direction. I never watched it myself, though.

I remember John Elder Robison mentioning this character in the book Look Me in the Eye as one of the few pop cultural depictions of an autistic person at the time that we became aware that he was on the spectrum (at age 40) and one that he didn't identify with at all.
Click to expand...

Not surprised... Back then, the only representations of autism were of the Tommy Westphall variety, which was basically like a kind of "retardation", to use the vernacular of the period. There was Tommy and this TV movie--Son-Rise: A Miracle of Love. Then in '88, Rain Man came out. Ironically, it is now suspected that neither of the inspirations for those two movies were actually autistic.
 
Ericho said:
The theory is that dozens of TV shows take place in this autistic boy's mind. There are others who claim HUNDREDS of shows take place. Tommy Westphall is probably the most significant fictional autistic character ever created because of this massive theory. In other words, we have Aspberger's to thank for dozens of TV shows since they were all imagined by him.
Click to expand...

I love the Tommy Westphall Universe theory, playing on the logic of TV crossovers and characters existing in the same fictional diagesis. However, the theory, which I happened to hit upon myself when I started watching St. Elsewhere back in the '90s (because they crossed over with Cheers and Frasier and Wings were still going), has an inherent flaw. It's not because of any philosophical argument over how you're supposed to consider fiction, or any other the other objections that people have raised. It's flawed based on its own logic, right at the source.

And it's because of this episode, "Close Encounters", from season four. And it happens not once, but twice. (By the way, it wasn't a Newhart crossover--it was The Bob Newhart Show, and here he is, Mr. Carlin...)

Mr. Carlin and John Doe #6 see The White Shadow on TV. By this point in the series, it has been established that Warren Coolidge's coach at Carver High got him a scholarship at B.U., but he blew out his knee, flunked out of school, and is currently employed as an orderly at St. Eligius. He can't be a fictional character and a real person in the same "universe".

The second one is more arguable... Dr. Weiss asks Dr. Auschlander what TV character he would want to be. Auschlander replies, "Trapper John...he's a reassuring doctor who never fails to save his patients." It has also been established that Dr. Mark Craig was good buddies in the Korean War with a Dr. B.J. Hunnicutt, who, as we know, replaced Trapper John McIntyre as a surgeon at the 4077th. Same issue. Yes, you could argue that it was a different B.J. Hunnicutt, but you can't argue that it was a different Warren Coolidge.

One of my favourite things about St. Elsewhere is that it was chock full of cultural references and intertextuality like that. Here's a great one that played with the Warren Coolidge crossover (at 30 seconds in):

Despite this objection, I happen to greatly enjoy the TWU theory, and I enjoy when a new series finds its way in, like Orange Is the New Black.
 
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Judge said:
St. Elsewhere. Yeah. The show where Howie Mandel was always hitting on Dr. Cathy Martin downstairs in the pathology department? The one who might have been an Aspie?

st-elsewhere-barbara-whinnery-howie-mandel.jpg


Haven't thought about that show in years. Yeah. Howie had hair...
Click to expand...

Wow... It never occurred to me to consider Cathy to be an Aspie, but she was definitely in her own little world!
 
Daniel said:
Wow... It never occurred to me to consider Cathy to be an Aspie, but she was definitely in her own little world!
Click to expand...

Cool. Not many people have discussed this, and I'm not really sure about it. But those who recall her....think about it. What do ya think? Possible, or am I reaching here?
 
Judge said:
Cool. Not many people have discussed this, and I'm not really sure about it. But those who recall her....think about it. What do ya think? Possible, or am I reaching here?
Click to expand...

Here's a clip from my channel... She does ramble on, but then she reads some non-verbal communication...
 
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