St. Elsewhere
TheMarvel Cinematic Universemight seem like a Brobdingnagian landscape of complect show and TV movies , but theTommy Westphall universehas it tick . Thanks to the phenomenal achiever of the MCU , partake in universes now dot the papa culture landscape painting , including the DCEU , The Conjuringuniverse , the Godzilla and King Kong MonsterVerse , and many more . Yet , none of those macrocosm equate to the filmy enormity of the Tommy Westphall humans , which traces back to theseries finaleof democratic 1980s medical dramaSt . Elsewhere .
In that installment , the entirety ofSt . Elsewhere , include all its characters , are revealed to have been the pipe dream of a underage grapheme named Tommy Westphall , an autistic male child who possesses a Charles Percy Snow globe control a replica of the infirmary where the serial publication convey place . At least that ’s the most widely held rendition ofSt . Elsewhere ’s final moment . The ending has become an notorious instance of the"it was all a dreaming " conclusionthat ’s come out in piles of flick and television receiver show over the years .
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Where things get complicated is that characters fromSt . Elsewheremade guest appearances on another goggle box series , and grapheme from that series in turning come out on other serial . This expands the Tommy Westphall creation ever outward , to the point where over 400 appearance now reside under its umbrella .
The Biggest Shared Universe Has Over 400 Shows
The first connecter made in the Tommy Westphall universe is fromSt . ElsewheretoHomicide : biography on the Street , which deal a author / producer in Tom Fontana . Characters fromHomicidecrossed over with multiple serial , includingThe X - Files , Law & Order , The WireandArrested Development , with Richard Belzer ’s John Munch being the most frequent culprit . The Westphall universe just observe expanding out in that manner from there , getting bigger and bigger in the same path as a snowball rolling downhill , which is appropriate consider Tommy ’s snow globe .
Just some of the other serial that have ended up connected as part of the Tommy Westphall creation includeCommunity , Seinfeld , Person of Interest , Malcolm in the Middle , andMarried with Children . Arrowis also included , which intend all subsequentArrowverseshows also tie back to Westphall . The full list includes 419 shows as of 2016 , the last time the curator of the Westphall theory updated its web site . certainly more shows have somehow become link up in the four years since , especially since theCrisis on Infinite EarthsArrowverse crossover included type from near every DC film and television continuity ever .
Of course , every party has a pooper , and there are those that consider theTommy Westphall universeridiculous . In their defense , the hypothesis ’s original creator , Dwayne McDuffle , in reality posited it while seek to bemock crazy shared universe theories free-base around guest appearances by one video show ’s character(s ) on another show . One prominent critic , Professor Brian Weatherson , argues that just becauseSt . Elsewhere ’s role appear in Tommy ’s dreaming does n’t mean they do n’t also subsist in the show ’s factual world , and thus the end is being interpreted wrong , and by lengthiness the universe of discourse theory is invalid . Even if that ’s lawful though , call back about it remains an risible diversion .
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