The St. Elsewhere Universe

I just found out about this yesterday. From Wikipedia...

"Tommy Westphall, portrayed by Chad Allen, is a minor character from the drama television series St. Elsewhere,[1] which ran on NBC from October 26, 1982, to May 25, 1988. Westphall, who is autistic, took on major significance in St. Elsewhere's final episode, 'The Last One,' where the common interpretation of that finale is that the entire St. Elsewhere storyline exists only within Westphall's imagination.[1] As characters from St. Elsewhere have appeared on other television shows and those shows' characters appeared on more shows, a 'Tommy Westphall Universe' hypothesis was developed where a significant amount of fictional episodic television exists within Tommy Westphall's imagined fictional universe."

I was a big fan of St Elsewhere and remember the finale. I had no idea that people had constructed this theory that with some crossovers other shows were also part of Tommy's imagination. I didn't really remember any crossovers but once I read that some of the doctor's had a cameo on Cheers I remembered that. Turns out they were on 12 different series and there was a stronger connection to Homicide.

"280 shows are connected to Homicide: Life on the Street and St. Elsewhere, for a grand total of 282 series. The only non-US shows in the Tommyverse are: The Degrassi shows (Canada),The Office (UK), the Doctor Who shows (UK), and Paris Section Criminelle (France). Paris Section Criminelle is the only show not in English in the Tommyverse. The shows span from 1951 (I Love Lucy) to the present (26 shows are still on the air).

This chart is crazy and this key file ( in text or PDF) describes all the connections. And yeah, some of the connections are due to Thomas Pynchon.