The Westphall theory posits that the show serves the same function for television itself, acting as a portal through which the medium’s past and present can flow. Elsewhere was an “institutional series” par excellence, showing the day-to-day workings of a major urban hub through which a cross section of humankind constantly flowed in and out.
#Saint elsewhere finale tv
The snow globe inspired the so-called Tommy Westphall theory of TV interconnectedness, one of the most playful and expansive fan theories of all time. The snow globe of TV has expanded exponentially since then, to the point where viewera would have to clone themselves 20 times to watch every sitcom or drama worth having an opinion on - a scenario that wouldn’t leave much room for watching other types of programming, or for eating and sleeping. In other words, try not to be too crushed that it’s ending, because it never really existed to begin with.” I like to think of the snow globe as a meta-commentary on the universe of TV generally, one that resonates more strongly now than it did three decades ago, when there were only three major broadcast networks, PBS, cable, and a bunch of syndicated stations, yet people who wrote about the medium for a living still worried that there was no way they could watch and keep tabs on everything. Elsewhere was ‘merely’ a work of fiction. I think other people will find it puzzling, odd, maybe unfulfilling in some way.”ĭavid Bushman, a TV curator at the Paley Center in New York City, recently described the final shot of the snow globe as “a reaffirmation that St.
“I think some people will think it’s extraordinary and existential and quintessential St.
#Saint elsewhere finale series
Law, Dead Like Me) - trying to say? Was it all the dream or fantasy of an autistic child? Was there some supernatural aspect to the series that everyone had missed throughout its six-season run? “I expect a very mixed reaction,” Bruce Paltrow, one of the show’s executive producers, told the Chicago Tribune. What were series creators Joshua Brand and John Falsey - and the episode’s screenwriters, Tom Fontana ( Homicide, Oz) and John Masius ( L.A. Daniel Auschlander (Norman Lloyd) - who had died earlier in the episode - was alive and well, and was suddenly Tommy’s grandfather.Īt the time, this puzzling closing image inspired as many arguments as the ending of The Sopranos 18 years later. Westphall was now a construction worker rather than a doctor, and St. To make things weirder, the characters weren’t the characters anymor. Eligius Hospital, the show’s principal location. Then the boy puts the snow globe down to prepare for bed, and the camera slowly zooms into the snow globe to reveal a miniature version of St.
Westphall (Ed Flanders) watches his autistic son Tommy (Chad Allen) stare at a snow globe that he gazes at all day long. 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.Today is the 30th anniversary of one of the most famous endings in all of television. Elsewhere seemed like an easy out.īTW, in the Wikipedia article about the last episode, someone estimates that "90% of the shows existed in this kid's head" due to the many show crossovers. This is not likely the case (I'm not going to search for links to autism websites for this answer), but for writers looking for some weird ending for their show (other than "it was all a dream"), the idea of a child imagining the world of St.
Because a lot of autistic children are withdrawn, it seems as though they're in their own world. The thing is, autism was - and still is - largely not understood what goes on in a person's brain. 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. As for the snow globe, that was the focus of Tommy's attention. I can't find any justification for ending the show this way, other than the writers wanted to end the show on a twist ending, rather than just another typical ending.
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