Tuesday, March 6, 2007

LINKIN' CASE: "HEROES" & "LOST"

Medium Rob gave me a shout-out this morning in his blog ("The Medium Is Not Enough", link to the left, thank you very much) when he posted a link to a Boston.com article about 'Lost'/'Heroes' crossover possibilities.

Always nice to get home from work in the morning to get a laugh like that.

The writer of the article seems to allow the creators of both shows to act coy about whether or not the "crossovers" seen so far are coincidental. I don't think they have much choice but to take that attitude, however. Sure, Kring and Lindelof are friends now, but who knows if there might be acrimony in the future which leads to accusations of plagiarism? And there's a larger business aspect at play here totally out of their control; the suits have to protect their interests.

The same kind of question has happened before, dealing with the identity of 'The Prisoner': was Number Six actually John Drake?

They had to say no officially, otherwise the man who created 'Danger Man' would have to be paid royalties. But I don't think there's much doubt in the minds of fans for both shows that Six and Drake are one and the same.

It's the position taken by Toobworld Central, at any rate.

However, I can see the argument made for the two major crossover points. With the Gannon Car Rental brochure that "Jessinikki" had a few episodes ago, they claimed that the name of the company was already cleared by lawyers and since the props were already sitting there in the warehouse....

I suspected as much when the "Too Many Notes" episode of 'Columbo' took place at Monolith Studios. The signs indicating the name of the studio were also used in several episodes of 'Murder, She Wrote' ("Film Flam" & "Murder Among Friends"). And at the time, I figured - these signs are just hanging around the prop warehouse, why not use them?

Still, that's all well and good for a Trueniverse splainin, but it doesn't negate that within the reality of Toobworld those props connect the shows.

The other crossover possibility mentioned in the article was of Nathan's little speech on 'Heroes' about the super-powered beings under threat of being hidden away in a laboratory on an island in the middle of the ocean.

This could be a shout-out to 'Lost', but that's dicey since 'Lost' takes place back in the fall of 2004. We don't know how it's going to end; if anybody in the outside world will ever learn what really happened there.

Because Jeph Loeb wrote that speech, and started out as a comic book writer, one of 'Lost's producers thought it was a reference to Genosha, the island nation in "The X-Men" comic books.

Now that would be cool beans! We've seen those mutants exist in the Cineverse and in the Tooniverse; it would be neat if there was some indication they exist in Toobworld as well. ('Mutant X' can't make that connection, again for legal reasons.)

But there is one argument for crossover legitimacy in the article that we do reject outright - when the same actors appear on both shows. (The example they use is Greg Grunberg, one of the stars of 'Heroes' and the ill-fated Pilot in the first episode of 'Lost'.)

Actors don't factor into Toobworld unless they are playing themselves. Otherwise there is no connection to the characters they play unless you want to make a case for identical cousins. So there's no link between the Pilot and Matt Parkman.

Joanna Weiss, who wrote the article, ended with a very Toobworldian "Wish-Craft" from Damon Lindelof, which is heartily approved by Tim Kring:

[If] the characters on "Lost" exist in the world of "Heroes," the chance for a TV rendezvous gets even more complex. Getting them together, after all, would require a trip to the past.

It could only be done by Hiro, the "Heroes" character who has the power to bend time and space.

And Lindelof has a thought.

"If there was ever a crossover," Lindelof said, "he would pop up, appear on the beach for, like, two seconds. He'd look at Hurley and he'd say, 'Hello,' and Hurley would say, 'Hello,' and then he would disappear again. And that would be it."

Cuse, Lindelof, and Kring all agree that's unlikely to happen. The shows are produced by different studios and networks -- all with different lawyers -- and the paperwork hurdle would likely be insurmountable. But Kring, for one, says he loves the idea.

"If we could talk them into doing it," he said, "we'd do it."

David Kelley was able to throw around his weight to get FOX and ABC to allow a cross-network crossover between 'Ally McBeal' and 'The Practice'. And different production companies didn't hamper the crossovers between 'Law & Order' and 'Homicide: Life On The Street', or 'Murder, She Wrote'/'Magnum P.I.' or 'The Associates'/'Paper Chase'.

So here's hoping this small crossover is allowed to happen. What's it going to take? A plane trip to Hawaii for Masi Oka? Come onnnnn!

At any rate, with the brochure they are now officially linked for Toobworld.

Click here for the article......

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

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