St. Elseworld

Someone set him up the bomb.

 "Family Feud" is the 15th episode of the fourth season of St. Elsewhere. It's also the episode that finally convinced me the writers are having fun with their audience and the television format, and that the famous twist at the series' end really doesn't come out of left field. 

The episode begins with Doctor Robert Caldwell (Mark Harmon) returning from vacation. He's met at St. Eligius by Doctor Elliot Axelrod (Stephen Furst), who briefs him about the goings-on at the hospital in Caldwell's absence:

• The gift shop was blown up--the second explosion on the show in two days, and Doctor Philip Chandler (Denzel Washington) was injured in both explosions
• Doctor Jack "Boomer" Morrison slipped on vomit and badly injured his knee
• The John Doe with amnesia regained his memory

And those are just some of the highlights. In the episode before this one, there's a cute exchange referencing Doctor Chandler's misfortune:

"Pretty rare for someone to be injured by two separate explosions in two days!"
"It's pretty rare for someone to be present at two separate explosions in two days." 

Later, the crutch-dependent Doctor Morrison meets his ex-girlfriend, Clancy Williams (Helen Hunt) at the hospital; she's been helping take care of Boomer's son while he recuperates from his injury. In a private moment, Doctor Morrison admits to Clancy, 

"I can't stop thinking about you...dreaming about being together..." 

Clancy rebuffs him. But later, Doctor Wayne Fiscus (Howie Mandel) uses the exact same language in an effort to get back together with his ex-fiance, Mona Polito (Leah Ayres). And then, a couple of scene later, Clancy says the same thing to Wayne! 

While all this is going on, Doctor Caldwell learns that he has AIDS, thanks to a blood test taken as a precursor to scar removal surgery. A few episodes prior, the handsome Doctor Caldwell was slashed in the face by a disturbed young woman he'd picked up on that selfsame vacation. It's not directly stated, but given Caldwell's comments..."Maybe I deserve this..." in reference to his habitual sleeping around, I feel like we, the audience, are meant to imagine that the knife used in the slashing was perhaps contaminated with infected blood, perhaps from the woman who assaulted him. Or maybe not, but it feels like a bit of dramatic irony the writers enjoy--the handsome plastic surgeon not only scarred by a scalpel, but doomed by it. 

Meanwhile, several members of an influential family, the Endicotts, clearly modelled after the Rockefellers or the Kennedys are at the hospital visiting their matriarch, the kindly grandmother undergoing open heart surgery to extend their life. The family is burdened with their fame and fortune and the responsibilities that come with it, three generations at odds with each other. 

Doctor Axelrod, not at all a part of these proceedings, is tending to a strange, angry patient who reacts violently to Axelrod's tests. At one point, the patient growls "You ever wonder why it's always you?" He delivers the line with eerie precision, looking straight into Axelrod's eyes, as if knowing that Axelrod is well-known for saying "Why me?" when he gets saddled with the worst cases. 

A few minutes later, Wayne's ex-fiancee Mona runs into Doctor Morrison in the hallway and confesses that she's long had a crush on him . . . and she says . . . 

"I can't stop thinking about you . . . dreaming about being together." 

At this point I thought I must have been hallucinating, but I went reviewed each scene, and yes, the phrase really is used four times by four different characters--each infatuated by the other's ex-partner. It's farcical, the kind of thing that could only happen in an invented world. 

It all comes to a head during the temporal intersection of three events: Doctor Craig is performing the heart operation on the Endicott patriarch, the Endicott father and son/grandson are praying together for their mother/grandmother's health while discussing their political destinies, and off-duty doctors are celebrating Doctor Morrison's birthday.

The operation ends not with tragedy, but a near-miss; the matriarch almost dies, but she pulls through. Wayne and Boomer mutually agree to pursue their exes with no hard feelings. But the women suddenly find that they're once again attracted to the men they broke up with. 

And in the chapel, the deranged man that was being treated by the luckless Doctor Axelrod walks in and assassinates the matriarch's son, the man who had been destined as the next major presidential candidate. A harrowing action sequence follows, and of course poor traumatized Axelrod and recently-bombed Chandler are the doctors who try and fail to save him. 

"Family Feud" is the best example yet of the show's creators winking at the audience that this is more than a straight hospital drama; it's an exploration of the soap opera genre, seeing to what heights of absurdity they can reach while still retaining the facade of a reasonably grounded work of art. 

Naturally, this is my favourite episode so far. It makes me feel like the world of St. Elsewhere is a close neighbour to the world of Twin Peaks. 

Memory Tools

Here are some of Granddad's old tools. Mom and Dad mounted these on a board from one of the Etsell sheds some years ago. These tools could date back to the 1930s. I'll find a spot to hang this; Sean has a similar tool board. I should ask him to take a photo. 

EDIT: He took a photo! I was mistaken. Sean took a barn board, but it didn't have tools on it. Instead, he mounted it on his wall, added hooks, and now he hangs his stuff on it. 

Memory Beacon

Sean and I each brought home one of these Beacon oil lanterns, originally used on the Etsell farm in Virden, Manitoba, and residing at Mom and Dad's place as long as I can remember...maybe since 1982, when Grandma died. General Steel Works started making these in 1911, but I don't think this one is that old, though I suppose it could be. I suspect it dates back at least to the 1940s. I'd say it might become handy when the apocalypse comes, but first I'd need to find oil and a wick to make it useful. 

EDIT: Sean reminded me that we actually gave the other oil lantern to Aunt Jean and Uncle John when they came by for Mom's celebration of life last year. 
 

The Memory Pool

As Sean and I continue to manage Mom's estate, we inevitably come upon connections to our family's past. I took this framed certificate down from the rec room wall today, and I don't know what to do with it. As a senior member of Manitoba Pool, Mom's dad would have been involved in governing the cooperative. I wonder what issues he might have voted on or advocated for. I don't remember Mom ever mentioning it. And unfortunately, I barely remember Granddad; he died not longer after this certificate was issued, and because we lived in northern Manitoba and Mom's parents in southern Manitoba, I probably only interacted with the man five or six times over the course of my life. 

I don't want to recycle it. But on the other hand, I have no heirs, so when I'm gone, whatever poor soul has to dispense with my estate will have to deal with it (along with all my other stuff). So keeping this only delays the inevitable. And creates more work for someone in the future. 

Sean and I have had to make some hard choices when it comes to Mom and Dad's stuff. We're trying to find good homes for anything useful. But for things like this, that only had meaning for Mom or Dad or maybe tangentially to Sean or me . . . I feel such guilt. On the other hand, I like to think that somehow our ancestors understand, and that they've moved beyond concerns like this. 




 

The Westphall

I was playing with Gemini tonight and asked it to turn a collection of images of a prop from an old 1970s kid show into a futuristic ambulance registered to St. Eligius. Then I remembered that technically, thanks to Tommy Westphall, St. Eligius exists in the same universe as the United Federation of Planets. So I turned my attention to the air tram seen in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. 

Voila, a Federation-style hospital shuttle, the Westphall, assigned to St. Eligius in Boston. 

In an eerie coincidence, just as I opened up blogger for this post, an amnesiac patient on the episode of St. Elsewhere I'm currently watching was flipping through television channels. We hear Captain Kirk say "Space, the final frontier," and the amnesiac's channel surfing ends on the famous MTM production cat animation--a cute in-joke. 

Of course, this means either that, in the expanded St. Elsewhere television universe, Star Trek exists as a television series that somehow foretells over 80 future events (counting the episodes and movies). Alternatively, the universe of St. Elsewhere has a show that duplicates our version of Star Trek's opening title sequence. 

I feel like the universe has been trying to tell me something important for years. 

Cheers to St. Elsewhere

During St. Elsewhere's season three finale, Doctors Donald Westphall, Mark Craig, and Daniel Auschlander head to Cheers for beer. 

Television crossovers are an old phenomenon, still seen today, but they're reasonably rare and thus still feel special, suggesting fictional worlds larger than the restrictions of any one drama or comedy. When I first read that the Cheers/St. Elsewhere crossover existed, I wondered how the creators of the episode would balance the very different tones of the two shows. 

As it turns out, and as I suppose should have been obvious, the crossover was a St. Elsewhere episode, not a Cheers episode, so drama won out. The three doctors have a pretty serious discussion at the bar, and the laughs aren't terribly uproarious. Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) is as sharp-mouthed as ever as she waits on the doctors' table, calling St. Eligius a dump and crossing swords with the equally sharp-tongued Doctor Craig. Norm (George Wendt) recognizes Doctor Auschlander when he walks into the bar, and there's a brief exchange about taxes; Norm, it turns out, is the good doctor's accountant. And finally. Cliff (John Ratzenberger) drifts by the table to share some of his overblown erudition. 

It all works, because the crossover feels organic. The scene is given just as much weight as it would have had there been no crossover at all; that is, if they'd gone to some other bar filled with nameless extras. If it was intended as a way to boost ratings for St. Elsewhere, the crossover was certainly handled more artistically than one might have expected. 

It's a-Me, Earlio!

And Sean-io. 
 

Invitation to Consider Invitation to Love

During the first season of Twin Peaks, we see several characters watching Invitation to Love, a soap opera that seems as crazed and histrionic as Twin Peaks itself can be. This gave me a thought today: If the characters in Twin Peaks watch Invitation to Love, do the characters in Invitation to Love watch Twin Peaks? 

In real life, Mark Frost took the helm for the Invitation to Love sequences, all shot over the course of one day for later insertion into Twin Peaks. Reportedly, co-creator David Lynch didn't like Frost's overt parody of the soap opera genre, so the device was allowed to fade out. It's too bad; it's a nicely Shakespearean conceit, and I would have loved to see it return in, well, The Return. 

Back to the meta question: The answer, for me, is yes, Jade and Montana and the others are just as enthralled with the drama of Twin Peaks as the people of Twin Peaks (the town) are with the world of Invitation to Love. The symmetry is just too perfect to ignore. 

What brought this question to mind today? I stumbled across Nestflix, a website dedicated to shows-within-shows. According to Nestflix, Invitation to Love ran for 10 seasons! 

Some Feelings on Fiscus

 

Howie Mandel as Doctor Wayne Fiscus

I've never been a fan of Howie Mandel.

That's a me problem, not a Mandel problem. His particular comic persona just isn't to my taste, accomplished as he may be. 

But I must say that I really enjoy Mandel as Doctor Wayne Fiscus, St. Eligius' emergency room resident. Fiscus likes to goof around a bit, but he's affectionate, cares about patients and staff alike, and does the right thing even when it's hard. Also, he's a casual dresser, and complains righteously when he's forced to wear a suit and tie while on duty. I loathe suits and ties, so naturally I'm sympathetic to the character's plight. 

I look forward to seeing where Mandel takes this character. In the almost-three seasons I've watched so far, he's already grown significantly. I hope that continues to the end of the series. 

Afternoon Visitor

I find it somewhat comforting when a bird drops in to hang out on our doorstep. 
 

A Comment about Comments

 Mea culpa! I just now noticed that my filter flagged several comments from readers as potentially spam and held them for me, awaiting my moderation. A handful of these comments were indeed spam, but at least that many were legitimate some stretching back several months. My apologies to all affected--it wasn't my intention to censor you. The legit comments have been approved. 

White's Wounded Women

Some of St. Elsewhere's Season Three Players.
Fans of Babylon 5 might recognize Stephen Furst in the middle. 

I guess you could say that Doctor Peter White's story began with some whimpering, and ended with a bang. A couple of days ago, I wrote about my amazement regarding the character's dark turn, and how I wondered how the writers could possibly bring him back for a third season. 

They found a way. White is a deeply troubling foil for the first third of the season, shoving his verdict of innocence in the faces of his colleagues while continuing to brazenly rape women--including a second attack on one of his prior victims, who winds up deeply psychologically damaged on top of her physical trauma (and little wonder). 

Three of White's victims: Nurse Shirley Daniels (driven to murder), Doctor Wendy Armstrong (victim of attempted rape, assaulted, driven to suicide), and Doctor Cathy Martin (raped and assaulted twice, driven to madness. Also, Ed Begley Jr.

Having White parading around St. Eligius as if he wasn't a violent rapist gets to be too much for Nurse Shirley Daniels (Ellen Bry), who steals a weapon from a police officer in the ER, hunts white down, and shoots him. White survives for a couple of hours, but ties before he can name is killer. It doesn't matter, because while it took forever for the police to arrest White for his crimes, poor Nurse Daniels is caught within hours. Hmmmm. 

The whole arc has, thus far, shone a lot of light--maybe accidentally, maybe not--on how women are treated at home, in the workplace, and in fiction. Wendy Armstrong (Kim Miyori) lasted only a season and a half on St. Elsewhere, and I can only think of one episode in which she was the focus and got a win--a "win" defined as a moment of respect from the male doctors. Even worse, Cathy Martin (Barbara Whinnery) was written from the beginning as a flighty, promiscuous eccentric--part of the reason her testimony is dismissed by the jury. The show neglected Armstrong and killed her off--without much real buildup or even proper connection to her frustration with White's trial or her assault. It just felt like the writers didn't know what to do with her. But Martin fares even worse, treated as comic relief for most of her appearances, then as a victim--twice--and then to madness. (She might recover; I haven't watched the whole series yet.) And the formerly level-headed Nurse Daniels becomes erratic enough to take revenge on White, resorting to a murder that she surely knows she can't get away with. She also confesses to a crush on Doctor Jack Morrison (David Morse), without any hint of having those feelings in previous episodes. One of the episodes I watched tonight culimates with Nurse Daniels being captured by the police, so I assume that she'll be written out shortly, as well. 

David Morse as Doctor Jack Morrison

The somewhat hapless Jack Morrison has, all the while, stuck by his friend, Peter White, despite everyone else at the hospital believing White to be responsible for the attacks. At one point, White asks Morrison "Why do you believe me?" Jack says something like "Because you told me you didn't do it, and that's good enough for me." He believes his male friend, but not the multiple women colleagues who were victimized. This really puts a dark stain on Jack's character, who I really want to like because he's the most compassionate doctor of the bunch. But wow, his reaction here is completely tone-deaf, and he seems to be confident in it even after White is shot! (Morse is a superb actor, by the way; I still remember him as a police officer blinded in the line of duty in Homicide: Life on the Streets.)

Eric Laneuville as Luther Hawkins. 

To be fair to Jack, in the last episode I watched tonight, "Sweet Dreams," it appears as though Jack does indeed have doubts. Jack, Dr. Victor Ehrlich (Ed Begley Jr.), and orderly Luther Hawkins (Eric Laneuville) are all involved in a dream study. Ehrlich, true to his character, dreams of being stranded on a tropical island with beautiful warrior women who sentence him to death by, er, snu-snu. Hawkins' dream is a wonderful spoof of the ZZ Top music video for "Legs," complete with the music track, several members of the cast dressed as the band and sexy models, and the ZZ Top roadster famous from the video. 

Jack, on the other hand, has a terrible nightmare about Peter White. Only in the dream do Jack's doubts materialize, and though he asks "Who killed you?" (White says "That's classified"), he does not ask "Did you do it?" 

But he doesn't need to, because the dream shows that he knows the answer is "yes" and hasn't been able to accept it. White bids Jack farewell, then puts on his ski mask and laughs manically, mocking Jack for his unearned trust. It's a very chilling sequence, and redeems Jack a tiny bit. I hope he apologizes to the women he dismissed. 

Ay, Ay, Eye!

 

Doctor Peter White's Heel Turn

 

Terence Knox as Doctor Peter White

Last month I finally started watching St. Elsewhere, the groundbreaking 1980s medical drama. I just finished season two, and I find myself astounded by Doctor Peter White's insanely dark heel turn about halfway through the season. 

Up to this point, White had been portrayed as a troubled resident beset with marital and money problems--issues that sometimes caused mildly jerk-ish behaviour, but nothing truly outlandish. Indeed, most of the residents on the show had similar or comparable personality quirks. But some well-meaning actions on White's part backfire on him, leading to his censure and putting his residency at risk. This leads to some addiction problems, which, to his credit, he overcomes, and becomes a better doctor to boot. 

Then, despite this rebound, he puts on a ski mask and rapes several women and attempts to rape one of the other residents. Caught red-handed in this last assault, White is arrested and put on trial. (His amusingly sleazy defence lawyer is played by Conrad Janis, who I remember as Mindy's dad from Mork & Mindy.) Amazingly, he's acquitted, despite testimony from his victims--two of whom are colleagues and fellow doctors at the hospital. And as an innocent man, he can't be prevented from returning to work at St. Eligius (AKA St. Elsewhere). One of the victims who testified commits suicide at the end of the season, and while--somewhat strangely--White's return to work isn't stated as one of the reasons for her suicide, it surely must have played a role. Considering the crucial role women play on this show, I feel like this was a deliberate choice by the writers--even the most accomplished women in crucial positions remain devalued in comparison to their male colleagues. 

I thought for sure this would be the end of White as a character, and that he'd be written off the show. But according to Wikipedia, Knox as White remains part of the main cast through season three, and even returns as a guest in season five. At this point it would be impossible to redeem White, so I imagine he'll act as a villainous foil for the other characters in season three. I did not expect this show to take such a starkly dark turn. 

DC Boardwalk

One might toss some jacks; caltrops for kids
Bounce ball on boardwalk
Grab jack
Second ground, grab two
And so on
Bonus points: ball colour
Perfectly matches wall colour
Ghosts peer through obsidian panes
Nails squeaking against glass
But the kids don't hear
They've reached tensies
And Harpreet has one chance to win
She scoops--she scores. 
Time for ice cream--the wall inspires Neapolitan
"We're all out of chocolate strawberry vanilla ice cream" 

Muddied Metaphors

Life isn't always perfectly pretty
Sometimes there's mud in the water
In poetry as in life
Green needs brown
Words need structure
But sometimes those structures fall apart and you get a horrible mess but hey
There's still life in it

Hail Sean!

Today's is Sean's birthday! And a big one, too. 

Happy Birthday, Sean, with many more to come! Your presents are, er...late. But coming! 

Pope Hat

♝
I accidentally discovered I can insert special characters into my blog posts. This sentence follows a pope hat.  

Pope hat
Pope hat
Roly poly pope hat
Pope hat pope hat
Eat them up, yum

Salem's Lot Boo Boo

Today a lovely special edition of Tobe Hooper's adaptation of Stephen King's Salem's Lot appeared on my doorstep. It comes with a two-sided poster, a "Welcome to Salem's Lot" sticker, and a handsome perfect-bound booklet that collects essays about the miniseries. 

Alas, sometime during the editing process, someone--more likely, multiple people--missed adding the name of Bonnie Bedelia's character to the cast list. For the record, Bedelia played the ill-fated Susan Norton. 

Gemini-Generated Paranoid Productions Logos

Some of these are fun, but most are kind of meh. A lot of them look like triangles because the original logo, created by Jeff Shyluk, was a pyramid with an eye near the apex, and I told Gemini that in the prompts. The wordmarks aren't bad, but look too much like the CBS logo. The pyramid with the shadow might be my favourite conceptually, but it feels like an awkward shape for most real-world purposes. Pyramid eyeball sunrise might have promise if reworked. 

Again, as a starting point? Maybe. Not ready for prime time, though. 
 

Gemini Generated Earliad Banners

A few weeks ago, I asked Gemini to generate some banners for the blog. I hate to admit that I kind of like these, but I'm not going to use them, not unless I pay a real artist to use these strictly as a "this is the sort of thing I'm looking for" sample. I think there might be a place to use generative AI as inspiration as long as we keep supporting human artists. 
 

What a Time to Be Alive

That one prophetic conversation
I can't shake it from my mind
1992 or 1993
After the fall of the wall; the end of history
"What if this is as good as it ever gets?" 
Maybe it was

Maybe the real end of history is chasing us now
Like a comet diving in from the Oort cloud
We see it coming
We can't stop it

And that's it--
Lights out forever

Reddit Glimpses Cranberry Portage

 

I came upon this post on r/1980s on Reddit just now, and I thought "Wow, this looks just like Grandma's place did in the 1980s. Hey...that looks like Mom and Dad's green Ford station wagon. And that looks like an Alberta plate. HEY...wait a minute..." 

I searched my own blog for the keywords "Cranberry Portage," and here's the source of the Reddit photo.

Pilfered from my own blog! But I'm not angry. How many images have I used from the web? Plenty. I think this is kind of neat. 

Threads

Black threads under our collective skin
Spreading insidiously through our careless flesh
Threads of envy; greed; hate
We live in one skin
Though we are billions
But the infection spreads

We are close
To being overwhelmed
Awakening sluggisly
Too slowly
Too late

A Few Thoughts on Manhattan Transfer

I picked up John E. Stith's Manhattan Transfer (1993) at the Wee Book Inn back in the early 2000s, based solely on the cover art and the title. I finally read it, a quarter of a century later, a few days ago. As it turns out, Manhattan Transfer, despite the goofy premise, turns out to be a thoughtful high concept science fiction thriller with heart. 

What you see is what you get: As seen on the cover, aliens pop a bubble around Manhattan Island, rip it out of the Hudson River, and put the whole borough inside their giant starship, on an interior plain with what appear to be dozens of other similarly kidnapped species--but these are cities from other worlds. 

The likeable protagonists spend a good deal of time exploring the mystery of their new situation: Why would aliens steal a city? Are they in a zoo? Are they going to be used as food? How will they meet their needs? Can they make contact with the aliens? 

The New Yorkers turn out to be pretty resilient in the face of all this, though there is some initial looting and panic at the start of the crisis. Once the alien kidnappers provide food, water, and maintain their oxygen supply, things calm down and a group of about a half-dozen motivated folks work with the mayor to explore the other kidnapped cities and see if there's a way to force the aliens to take them back to Earth. 

John E. Stith approaches his plot and characters with care, attention to detail, empathy, and prose style well-suited to a steadily-paced adventure. I found myself easily invested in the characters and their quest to get some answers, and the second half of the novel becomes quite exciting as they discover their real predicament and wind up playing for much, much higher stakes. 

I wasn't expecting much from this novel, thanks to the novel's name and the cover art. I'd also never heard of the author, though now I know he was nominated for a Nebula! (Ignorance, thy name is Earl.) I don't think my low expectations should prejudice my view of the novel; I think it's genuinely good. Even the science is reasonably plausible, given the ideas set out in the story. Certainly issues with inertia and the speed of light are hand-waved away, but that's common for the genre; what's important is Stith makes everything believeable. 

I wonder what kind of conversations this stirred up in the 1990s, when I'm sure at least a few New Yorkers were reading this on the subway.