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.