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St. Elsewhere was a weekly drama series that originally ran on NBC from October 26, 1982 to May 25, 1988. The series was set in a decaying urban teaching hospital called St. Eligius Hospital (named for St. Eligius), in Boston's South End neighborhood (said at the time to be based on Boston City Hospital, now Boston Medical Center). The hospital's nickname, "St. Elsewhere," is medical industry slang for poor hospitals that serve patients not wanted by the more prestigious institutions. As a medical drama, St. Elsewhere dealt with serious issues of life and death, though episodes also included a substantial amount of black comedy.
Running six seasons and 137 episodes, the show is frequently mentioned in discussions about television series finales, due to its own provocative ending. It was produced by MTM Enterprises, which found success with Hill Street Blues around the same time. The two shows were often compared.
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Overview
The series had a large ensemble cast, a "realistic" visual style, and a profusion of interlocking stories, and could be regarded as something of a serial for its ongoing storylines that continued over the course of many episodes, and sometimes many seasons. Its influence can be seen in more recent medical series such as ER. The series was well regarded by critics, including the influential David Bianculli of the New York Daily News, and received 13 Emmys during its six-season run.
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.
In addition to established actors Ed Flanders, Norman Lloyd, and William Daniels, St. Elsewhere is also noted for helping to launch the careers of a number of then little-known actors, who have gone onto much greater fame, including Denzel Washington, David Morse, Alfre Woodard, Mark Harmon, Bruce Greenwood, Helen Hunt, Kyle Secor, and Howie Mandel.
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Final episode
The last episode of St. Elsewhere, The Last One, ended in a context very different from every other episode of the series. As the viewer pans away from snow beginning to fall at St. Eligius hospital, the scene changes to Donald Westphall's autistic son Tommy, and Daniel Auschlander in an apartment building. Westphall arrives home from a day of work, and it is clear that he works in construction from the uniform he wears and from a conversation in this scene. "Auschlander" is revealed to be Donald's father, and thus Tommy's grandfather. Donald laments to his father, "I don't understand this autism. I talk to my boy, but...I'm not even sure if he ever hears me...Tommy's locked inside his own world. Staring at that toy all day long. What does he think about?" The toy is revealed to be a snow globe with a replica of St. Eligius hospital inside. Tommy shakes the snow globe, and is told by his father to come and wash his hands, after having left the snow globe on the family's television set*.
One of the more common interpretations of this scene is that the total series of events in the series St. Elsewhere had been a product of Tommy Westphall's imagination, with elements of the above scene used as its own evidence**.
One of the results of this has been an attempt by individuals to determine how many television shows are also products of this Tommy Westphall's mind because of shared fictional characters: the "Tommy Westphall Universe". See Tommy Westphall for further discussion of this hypothesis.
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Cast
Nurse Shirley Daniels (1982-1985) — Ellen Bry
Orderly Luther Hawkins — Eric Laneuville, who also directed more than 15 episodes
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Notes
Donald Westphall's exit is famous. Frustrated by the new administration of the hospital, he quit and then mooned boss John Gideon.
The building used in exterior shots of the hospital, while only a block away from Boston City Hospital (now Boston Medical Center, and ostensibly the basis for the hospital depicted on the show), is an apartment building and was never used as a hospital. (It was, however, used as a nurses' residence.)
In the opening credits a rare (and, by the end of the show, anachronistic) shot of an MBTA Orange Line train can be seen on the elevated tracks above Washington Street. This line was demolished and relocated below ground in 1987.
Though filmed in Hollywood, cast and crew were flown to Boston for two weeks each season to film all of that season's exterior shots. Producers went to great lengths to make sure that street names and other Boston details were accurate and correctly pronounced. In addition they insisted on accurate medical terminology and authentic procedures.
Bonnie Bartlett, who played Mark Craig's wife Ellen, is married to Craig's portrayer William Daniels in real life. Ellen Craig was a recurring character during the show's early years, appearing in a few episodes per season. She proved to be so popular that she became a regular cast member beginning with St. Elsewheres fifth season.
Actor Tim Robbins appeared in a first-season story arc, playing an injured, very nasty and unrepentant terrorist, who had set off a bomb within a bank as a form of social protest. At the conclusion of his story arc, he is shot dead inside the hospital by the husband of one of his victims. Much later, the husband, now in prison, resurfaces in a story arc involving Dr. Jack Morrison.
"Time Heals," a two-part episode in the middle of Season 4, has been cited by David Bianculli and others as one of the finest moments in television history. Over the course of the two hours of "Time Heals," viewers are taken back in time to learn the back stories of many of the show's main characters. Most compelling is Father Joseph McCabe, played by guest star Edward Herrmann. "Time Heals" was listed 44th on TV Guide's list of the greatest television show episodes of all time.
Notables guest stars on St. Elsewhere over the years included Eric Stoltz, Pauly Shore, Ray Charles, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Tom Hulce, Jane Kaczmarek, Lainie Kazan, Jayne Meadows, Laraine Newman, James Coco, Doris Roberts, Piper Laurie, Alan Arkin, Robert Davi, Christopher Guest, Lance Guest, Ray Liotta, Betty White, Michael Madsen, Ernie Hudson, Kate Mulgrew, Kathy Bates, John Astin, Michael Richards, Austin Pendleton, Blythe Danner, and many more.
Character actor Josef Sommer was originally cast as Dr. Donald Westphall, but was cut from the unfinished original pilot, and replaced by Ed Flanders.
Actor David Paymer was originally cast was Dr. Wayne Fiscus. But he was fired and replaced by Howie Mandel. Paymer later appeared as a guest star during a Season 6 episode.
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In-jokes, puns and crossovers
The series was noted for featuring an unusually large number of in-jokes and oblique pop culture references. A favorite device was to use the hospital's P.A. system to page doctors from other medical series. (This was usually only heard in the backgound, and never remarked upon by any St. Elsewhere character.)
Other pop culture references were buried in dialogue, such as (among many others) Dr. Craig telling his housekeeper, "Watch out Grace, the roads are a little slick" (ref. Grace Slick); or Dr. Auschlander telling Dr. Westphall "When you're petty, you can be a heartbreaker" (ref. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers); or having several of the regulars on Steve Allen's Tonight Show appear as various St. Elsewhere cast members' fathers — and then, in a line of dialogue about a fire, having Allen say to the other 'fathers', "Well, that's tonight's show over."
A 1985 episode featured a Cheers crossover, in which Drs. Westphall, Auschlander and Craig stop into the fictional Cheers Pub (also set in Boston) for a drink, and Craig gets into a verbal altercation with barmaid Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman). This was unusual at the time, as it crossed sitcom characters over into a dramatic series.
Chicago Hope Dr. Kate Austin (played by Christine Lahti, cast regular) tells a journalist in season two that her surgery mentor had been Dr. David Domedion, which is also Dr. Mark Craig's mentor, apprearing in episodes 68 and 86 of St. Elsewhere, played by Dean Jagger. Dr. Craig, Dr. Domedion and Dr. Austin (the latter from Chicago Hope TV serial) were all cardiothoracic surgeons.
Orderly Warren Coolidge, played by Byron Stewart, was a crossover character from the 70s TV series The White Shadow, in which he played a flakey but talented basketball player in high school. In one episode, Coolidge is seen wearing a "Carver High School" T-shirt, his alma mater in Los Angeles. Over the years, several oblique references were made to Coolidge's basketball days, usually by fellow orderly Luther Hawkins, which explained his crossover to St. Elsewhere. In one episode, Coolidge explains that he accepted a basketball scholarship at Boston College but blew out his knee during his sophomore year. In another, Timothy van Patten, also a regular from The White Shadow, guest-starred. Coolidge called out to the man who, he was convinced, was his old teammate, but was told by van Patten's character that he had "the wrong guy."
Betty White, when she appeared on the series, was called "Sue Ann" by a psychiatric patient, a reference to Betty White's character on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The patient believed himself to be Mary Richards. In the same episode, another patient in the psychiatric ward is none other than Elliott Carlin, the resident neurotic from The Bob Newhart Show, as played by veteran character actor Jack Riley. Carlin tells another patient he is there because his life was ruined by "a quack psychologist in Chicago!"
B.J. Hunnicutt, a fictional character from the series M*A*S*H, was referred to by Dr. Craig as a drinking buddy in Korea.
The Kitten in the MTM logo is wearing a scrub suit and a surgical mask, which is animated to look like a mouth is moving underneath when he meows. On the final episode, he is hooked on life support on a hospital bed and then dies. (The actual cat that was used for the logo had also died around the same time as St. Elsewhere's ending)
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Awards Won
Emmy Awards:
Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series Mark Tinker (1988)
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series Ed Flanders (1983)
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series Bonnie Bartlett (1986 and 1987)
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series James Coco (1983)
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series Doris Roberts (1983)
Peabody Award (1984)
Humanitas Prize (1985)
Television Critics Association Award for Drama Series (1988)
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Awards Nominated
Emmy Awards:
Outstanding Drama Series (1983-88)
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series Ed Flanders (1985, 1986)
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series Ed Begley Jr. (1984-88)
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series Piper Laurie (1984)
Outstanding Guest Performer in a Drama Series Alfre Woodard (1988)
Outstanding Guest Performer in a Drama Series Lainie Kazan (1988)
Outstanding Guest Performer in a Drama Series Steve Allen (1987)
Outstanding Guest Performer in a Drama Series Jayne Meadows (1987)
Outstanding Guest Performer in a Drama Series Edward Herrmann (1986 and 1987)
Golden Globes:
Outstanding Drama Series (1985, 1986, 1987, 1988)
Directors Guild of America:
Oustanding Directorial Achievement in Drama Mark Tinker (1985, 1987, 1988, 1989)
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