St. Elsewhere
St. Elsewhere is an American medical drama television series created by Joshua Brand and John Falsey that originally ran on NBC from October 26, 1982, to May 25, 1988. The series stars Ed Flanders, Norman Lloyd, and William Daniels as teaching doctors at an aging, run-down Boston hospital who give interns a promising future in making critical medical and life decisions. The series was produced by MTM Enterprises, which had success with a similar NBC series, the police drama Hill Street Blues, during that same time. The series were often compared to each other for their use of ensemble casts and overlapping serialized storylines.
Recognized for its gritty, realistic drama, St. Elsewhere gained a small yet loyal following over its six-season, 137-episode run; however, the series also found a strong audience in Nielsen's 18–49 age demographic, a demo later known as a young, affluent audience that TV advertisers were eager to reach. The series also earned critical acclaim during its run, earning 13 Emmy Awards for its writing, acting, and directing and is widely regarded as one of the greatest television shows of all time.
Overview
St. Elsewhere was set at the fictional St. Eligius Hospital, a decaying urban teaching hospital in Boston's South End neighborhood.In the pilot episode, surgeon Dr. Mark Craig informs his colleagues that the local Boston media had bestowed the derogatory nickname upon St. Eligius since they perceived the hospital as "a dumping ground, a place you wouldn't want to send your mother-in-law." In fact, the hospital was so poorly regarded that its shrine to Saint Eligius was commonly defiled by the hospital's visitors and staff. Despite the hospital's reputation, they employed some first-rate doctors—including Craig, a world-class heart surgeon. As well, their administrative staff was shown to care deeply about the hospital's mission, even as they dealt with a lack of up-to-date equipment, funding, and experienced personnel.
Just as in Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere employed a large ensemble cast, a gritty, "realistic" visual style, and a multitude of interlocking serialized stories, many of which continued over the course of multiple episodes or seasons. In the same way Hill Street was regarded as a groundbreaking police drama, St. Elsewhere also broke new ground in medical dramas, creating a template that influenced ER, Chicago Hope, and other later shows in the genre. St. Elsewhere portrayed the medical profession as an admirable but less-than-perfect endeavor; the St. Eligius staff, while mostly having good intentions in serving their patients, all had their own personal and professional problems, with the two often intertwining. The staff's problems, and those of their patients, were often contemporary in nature, with storylines involving breast cancer, AIDS, and addiction. Though the series dealt with serious issues of life, death, the medical profession, and the human effects of all three, a substantial number of comedic moments, inside jokes, and references to television history were included, as well as tender moments of humanity.
The producers for the series were Bruce Paltrow, Mark Tinker, John Masius, Tom Fontana, John Falsey and Abby Singer. Tinker, Masius, Fontana, and Paltrow wrote a number of episodes as well; other writers included John Tinker, John Ford Noonan, Charles H. Eglee, Eric Overmyer, Channing Gibson, and Aram Saroyan.
Image:St Elsewhere.jpg|thumb|The cast of St. Elsewhere
The show's main and end title theme was composed by famed jazz musician and composer Dave Grusin. Noted film and TV composer J. A. C. Redford wrote the music for the series. No soundtrack was ever released, but the theme was released in two different versions: the original TV mix and edit appeared on TVT Records' compilation Television's Greatest Hits, Vol. 3: 70s & 80s, and Grusin recorded a full-length version for inclusion on his Night Lines album, released in 1983.
Main cast
Along with established actors Ed Flanders, Norman Lloyd and William Daniels, St. Elsewhere's ensemble cast included Ed Begley Jr., Stephen Furst, Bruce Greenwood, Mark Harmon, Howie Mandel, David Morse, Christina Pickles, Kyle Secor, Denzel Washington, and Alfre Woodard. Notable guest stars include Tim Robbins, whose first major role was in the series' first three episodes as domestic terrorist Andrew Reinhardt, and Doris Roberts and James Coco, who each earned Emmy Awards for their season-one appearance as a bag lady and her mentally challenged husband.Episodes
St. Elsewhere ran for six seasons and 137 episodes; the first season aired Tuesdays at 10 p.m., with remaining seasons airing Wednesdays at 10 p.m.St. Elsewhere was noteworthy for featuring episodes with unusual aspects or significant changes to the series' status quo. Some of those episodes included:
"Qui Transtulit Sustinet"
Original air date: November 16, 1983Dr. Morrison learns of the death of his wife, Nina, after slipping and hitting her head. Nina's heart is donated to a heart transplant patient—a patient of Dr. Craig. The poignant final scene of the episode finds Morrison entering the patient's room and, with a stethoscope, hearing the patient's new heart—Nina's heart—steadily beating.
"Cheers"
Original air date: March 27, 1985St. Elsewhere ended its 3rd season with this TV crossover that found Drs. Westphall, Auschlander, and Craig getting together at Cheers. The scene, which was filmed on the main Cheers soundstage, finds Cliff Clavin trying and failing to gain free medical advice from the doctors, Auschlander confronting his former accountant Norm Peterson, and barmaid Carla Tortelli voicing her displeasure with the doctors regarding her stay in St. Eligius two years earlier for the birth of her baby. The scene ends with Westphall announcing to his two colleagues that he has decided to leave St. Eligius and medicine, a short-lived departure, as he returned in the Season 4 premiere.
The merger of Cheers' and St. Elsewhere's universes created a discontinuity with the second season finale, "Hello, Goodbye", in which Dr. Morrison and his young son spend a day on the town and visit the real-world Bull and Finch Pub, the banners out front celebrating it as the inspiration for Cheers.
"Time Heals"
Original air date: February 19 and 20, 1986This two-part episode featured storylines that fleshed out the 50-year history of St. Eligius, each sequence taped in a different style. The storylines included the hospital's 1936 founding by Fr. Joseph McCabe, the arrivals of Dr. Auschlander and Nurse Rosenthal, the early struggles of Mark Craig and his relationship with his mentor, the death of Dr. Westphall's wife, and Dr. Morrison simultaneously dealing with an overdose patient, a knee injury, and the disappearance of his son. TV Guide ranked "Time Heals" No. 44 on its 1997 list of "100 Greatest Episodes of All Time", calling the episode "a masterwork of dramatic writing."
"After Life"
Original air date: November 26, 1986This episode deals with the shooting of Dr. Wayne Fiscus, who is critically wounded after being shot by the vengeful wife of a patient he is treating in the ER. As the staff frantically try to save him, Fiscus ventures back-and-forth between Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, where he has a conversation with God, who presents Himself as a spitting image of Fiscus. Just as Fiscus shakes hands with Lou Gehrig, his colleagues successfully revive him.
"Last Dance at the Wrecker's Ball"
Original air date: May 27, 1987In the season-five finale, all attempts to save St. Eligius from closing seem to have failed. As demolition begins, a frail Dr. Auschlander, accidentally left in the hospital after a relapse, attempts to escape.
"A Moon For the Misbegotten"
Original air date: September 30, 1987St. Eligius is saved, but it falls under the new ownership of Ecumena Corporation, a national managed health care concern. Ecumena's choice to head St. Eligius, Dr. John Gideon, did not get along well with the St. Eligius staff, especially Dr. Westphall, who, in the final scene of this episode, delivers his resignation "in terms you can understand"—by dropping his pants and exposing his bare buttocks to Gideon. This scene, which would normally be considered controversial, was preserved by NBC's censors as they did not consider Westphall's display to be erotic in nature.
"Their Town"
Original air date: April 20, 1988In a somewhat change-of-pace episode, Drs. Craig and Novino, Ellen Craig, and Lizzie Westphall visit Donald and Tommy Westphall, who appear to be enjoying the quiet life in small town New Hampshire. The episode features Dr. Westphall occasionally breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the viewer, a la the "Stage Manager" character in Our Town. The teleplay for "Their Town" was written by St. Elsewhere cast member Sagan Lewis, although her character of Dr. Wade does not appear.
"The Last One"
Original air date: May 25, 1988St. Elsewheres series finale features momentous changes for several main characters, including the departures of Drs. Fiscus and Morrison and the death of Dr. Auschlander, as well as the return of Dr. Westphall to an active leadership role at St. Eligius after Weigert agrees to sell the hospital back to the Boston archdiocese, as Dr. Gideon is set to move on to another hospital in San Jose, California.
The finale is more known for its provocative final scene: Westphall and his son Tommy Westphall, who has autism, are seen in Dr. Auschlander's office watching snow falling outside. The image cuts to an exterior shot of the hospital, shaking. At that moment, Tommy and Daniel Auschlander are seen in an apartment building, with Tommy sitting on the floor playing with a snow globe. A much younger-looking Donald arrives home from a day of work, and it is clear from the uniform he wears and the dialog in this scene that he works in construction. "Auschlander" is revealed to be Donald's father, and thus Tommy's grandfather. Donald laments to his father, "I don't understand this autism thing, Pop. Here's my son. I talk to him. I don't even know if he can hear me, because he sits there, all day long, in his own world, staring at that toy. What's he thinking about?" As Tommy shakes the snow globe, he is told by his father to come and wash his hands for dinner. Donald places the snow globe on the family's television set and walks into the kitchen with Tommy and Auschlander; as they leave the room, the camera closes in on the snow globe—which holds a replica of St. Eligius.
The most common interpretation of this scene is that the entire series of events in the series St. Elsewhere has been a product of Tommy Westphall's imagination, with elements of the above scene used as its own evidence. Author Cynthia Burkhead explains that with this final shot, "St. Elsewhere managed to take the idea of a dream and alter it just enough, putting it in the imagination of an autistic boy", and surmises that an ending constructed in this manner "reminds viewers that the fiction they have watched for six years is actually fiction within a fiction, occupying a second level of unreality, one level beyond the space of illusion filled by all narrative television." A notable result of this ending has been the attempt by individuals to determine how many television shows are also products of Tommy Westphall's mind owing to its shared fictional characters.
"The Last One"'s closing credits differ from those of the rest of the series. In all other episodes, the credits appear over a still image of an ongoing surgical operation, followed by the traditional MTM Productions black-backgrounded logo, featuring Mimsie the Cat in a cartoon surgical cap and mask. Here, the credits appear on a black background, flanked by an electrocardiogram and an IV bag, with Mimsie lying on her side at the top of the screen; at the end of the credits, the heart monitor flatlines, and Mimsie dies, thus ending St. Elsewhere for good. Coincidentally, Mimsie the Cat died in real life shortly after the airing of "The Last One" at the age of 20.
"The Last One" brought in 22.5 million viewers, ranking 7th out of 68 programs that week and attracting a 17.0/29 rating/share, and ranking as the most watched episode of the series. In 2011, the finale was ranked No. 12 on the TV Guide Network special TV's Most Unforgettable Finales.