Sunday, November 19, 2006

I Love Crossovers

When someone says "crossover", I always think comics. There are a few types of them common in the comic world:

- a character crossing over into another's title, like if Batman shows up in Green Arrow for a guest appearance;

- characters going both ways (so to speak), so after Bats' appearance in Green Arrow, the story continues into Detective Comics where the two heroes provide the second part of the tale;

- inter-company crossovers like when Superman (DC) and Spider-Man (Marvel) met for the first time.

I'm still enough of a fanboy, after all these years, that such things still catch my attention, although most aren't actually all that interesting these days.

But in the world of television, crossovers are considerably rarer. Usually you see them in spin-off situations, like if Buffy shows up in Angel (or vice versa) or Mary Richards pays her best friend a visit in Rhoda. One of the weirdest TV crossovers, though, was when some of the doctors from St. Elsewhere paid a visit to the Cheers bar. In some ways, it made sense: both shows were on NBC, and set in Boston. But when you consider that one was an hour long hospital drama and the other a half hour sitcom, you have to shake your head a bit. And yet, I remember being thrilled at the idea when I heard about it, and enjoying it when it aired. For some reason, I was expecting it to be a two-way crossover, with Sam Malone or Carla showing up in St. Elsewhere, but it never happened and chances are it was just wishful thinking on my part.

Tammy posted a link awhile back for an article about speculation over whether Heroes and Lost would do a crossover (short answer: no, they're on different networks so it'll never happen). But isn't it fun to imagine such things? Here are a few others that tickle my fancy to dream about:

1) The Borg somehow end up in the Babylon 5 universe and it's up to Captain John Sheridan to send 'em back where they came from (the Trek universe).

2) Jack Bauer arrives on the island on Lost, and decides he's going to get to the bottom of the Island's mysteries... in the next 24 hours!

3) Matt and Danny from Studio 60 wander onto the set of TGS and discover the difference between talking about being funny and actually being funny, with a little help from the cast of 30 Rock.

And feel free to suggest your own dream crossovers, no matter how silly.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

One time George Clooney and Noah Wyle guest starred on friends as two handsome young doctors. Not specifically named, so perhaps it doesn't count.

Last week on The OC (nothing better was on, I swear) one of the characters left to go work at a "quirky hospital called Seattle Grace" where later we find out he's being bossed around by a short woman (both very direct Grey's references - though of course we never see him on Grey's... if only).

Peter Janes said...

Dream crossovers? Those three suggestions are going to haunt me for days.

The "virtual crossovers" T mentions are similar to the PopCultRefs you mentioned a couple of posts back. One of my favourites happens to be related to yours, though: William Daniels, Ed Begley Jr. and Stephen Furst appeared together as doctors on an episode of "Scrubs" (along with, as I just discovered on IMDb, Eric Laneuville, who played an orderly on StE). Other fun is the current storyline on "Veronica Mars" where Enrico Colantoni's character is going out with Laura San Giacomo's---they co-starred in the series "Just Shoot Me"---and the recurring/expanding "Da Vinci's Inquest" reunion that's happening on "Battlestar Galactica".

How about this to cap things off (and prove I'm really reading everything): "Charlie Don't Surf" was the title of an episode of VM that aired about a month ago.

Anonymous said...

I still don't understand the Charlie Don't Surf reference, but nevertheless can I use it as another reason everyone should watch Veronica Mars?

Kimota94 aka Matt aka AgileMan said...

Rather than give you a fish, I'll endeavour to teach you how to fish: type "Charlie don't surf" in the search field in Wikipedia and see where it takes you. Then do a find on "Charlie" within that entry and all will become clear.

"Charlie don't surf!" is a cool PopCultRef. "I heart _____" is just plain stupid.

Anonymous said...

:p I know how to research! I just wanted to hear it from YOU! Don't know why, now that I think about it ...

Kimota94 aka Matt aka AgileMan said...

No need to sulk, young lady!