Today, I want to know which outright TV crossover was your favorite.
Pop Culture Theme Time is a feature where I put a question to you to see what you think about a particular theme. I might later revisit the theme for a future Drawing Crazy Patterns or Top Five.
Something that never really happened on TV shows until the 1970s was legit crossover episodes. I’m not talking stuff like Character X appearing in an episode of Show Y, I mean an outright crossover where the story begins on Show A and then concludes on Show B (or, I guess if you’re going even more elaborate, starts on Show A, continues on Show B and then concludes on Show A, or hey, sometimes I guess Shows C and D get involved).
So what is your all-time favorite outright TV crossover involving at least two series?
My pick is the Ally McBeal/The Practice crossover, in Ally McBeal Season 1’s ”The Inmates” and The Practice Season 2’s “Ax Murderer,” where Ally’s law firm picks up a major murder case but knows it is a bit out of their league, so they enlist Bobby Donnell and Associates to team-up with them.
The first episode is done in the wacky Ally McBeal style (the show won Best Comedy Series at the Emmys) while the second episode was done in the serious The Practice style (the show won Best Drama Series at the Emmys). It was a clever crossover by David E. Kelley, especially since the shows took place on two different networks at the time (Fox for Ally McBeal, ABC for The Practice).
That’s my pick.
What’s yours?
And feel free to suggest future Pop Culture Theme Time topics to me at brian@popculturereferences.com!
I like the subtlety of the Wire’s crossover with Homicide/Law & Order.
Or the X-Files/Homicide.
The doctors of St Eligius dropping by Cheers! one evening forever trapped almost every TV show in the dreams of an autistic child. That’s the most influential crossover to me!
Dexter Morgan once used a Sabre printer, and my entire world was turned upside-down.
The one that was going to happen until it didn’t. Picket Fences and X-files
I’d say that crossovers on Angel with Buffy the Vampire Slayer had two very good ones, and they’re both crossovers without Buffy. The first was in the very first season “In the Dark,” where Oz drops off a ring that makes vampires invincible. The last season has “Damage,” where Andrew assists Angel and Spike in apprehending a crazy Slayer.
I think these worked best without Buffy because it allowed Angel to truly move on and be his own character (though other episodes undercut this, unfortunately), and they worked humor into a dramatic story without being pure comedy.