TVXOHOF, BIRTHDAY HONORS 2012 - THE DOCTOR & THE NURSE (PURELY SHIRLEY)

Because I took a three-day weekend to celebrate my birthday, I was remiss in posting the Birthday Honors induction into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame. Once I got back from the Lake, Time just got away from me. Hopefully I can catch up on a lot of postings today.....

The Birthday Honors tradition, patterned after those knighthoods awarded by Her Majesty over in Jolly Ole, began when I realized that officially I could never have included my all-time favorite TV character - Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless - in the Hall because of the regulations I had set down. The not-so-good doctor would have needed to make two more official appearances in other TV shows/commercials/movies in order to qualify.

However, I've always maintained that it was Dr. Loveless we were actually seeing when actor Michael Dunn appeared in other TV shows like 'Bonanza', 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' and the pilot for 'Get Smart'.

o I decided to bend the rules on my birthday, when the motto is "What I say, goes."

I've used (some might say "abused") the honor in the past by inducting myself on my 50th birthday and also the place where I work.  But I say, what better reason could there be for the Birthday Honors list than for nepotism?

SHIRLEY JORDAN

And that's why today we're inducting two characters, both played by my dear friend and twin soul sister, Shirley Jordan.......

Even though it wasn't the first appearance, let's start with this quick scene from 'Desperate Housewives':

"THE NURSE"

[Mary Alice approaches the nurse’s station with a file folder. A younger Felicia Tilman is talking to a nurse who is looking at a calendar at the desk.]

Nurse: "What a lovely calendar. Was this taken around here?"
Felicia: "Oh, no. That's way out in Fairview. I have family there. Isn't it idyllic?"
('Desperate Housewives')

Shirley played the nurse at the rehab center in a flashback with Mary Alice Young. She admired the calendar provided by Mrs. Huber's sister, which gave Mary Alice the idea about moving to Fairview.

(Even though it wasn't Shirley Jordan's first appearance as a nurse in Toobworld, this would be the first occurrence on the Toobworld timeline.)

The Nurse didn't know that calendar scene wasn't in the Los Angeles area, because she had only recently moved out there. During the 1980s, she lived in Pine Valley, where she worked at the local hospital. During one of her shifts, she helped remove a bullet from Palmer Cortlandt.

('All My Children')

After getting her credentials and resume updated by working at that women's health clinic, she then went to work at Community General. She was working in the emergency room there in 1996 when a noted cardiologist committed a murder.

('Diagnosis Murder')

It could be that Community General was also the same hospital where a member of the Forrester Family was brought in, after he drove his car over a cliff. As a trauma nurse, she helped save the life of one of the leading figures in L.A.'s world of high fashion.

('The Bold & The Beautiful')

Although Shirley filmed a scene with Vivica Fox for 'City of Angels' back in 1999, in which she again played a nurse, it was edited out of the final version. So since it was never broadcast, it can't be included. And that's a shame, because her nurse character had a name in that one - Eloise Martin.

(But then again, we could always cite the "Khan-Chekov Principle" - just because it wasn't seen, doesn't mean it didn't happen.)

If we were able to use "Eloise Martin" as her name (with "Weezy" as her nickname?), it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, then that we'd know the last name of Phoebe Buffay's first OB-GYN back in New York City, when she was pregnant with her half-brother's triplets in 1998. Trust me, it's a long story, but one with free porno!

('Friends')

"THE DOCTOR"

It's my belief that both the Nurse and the Doctor were twins who lived near each other in New York state; one in Manhattan, the other in Pine Valley. I don't have any theories as to why the Nurse would have left for the West Coast near the end of the 1980s, but I don't think it was due to any enmity between the twin sisters.

That's because by the dawn of the new Millennium, both of the sisters were living in Chicago. 

There, the Nurse worked in a homeopathic clinic for cancer patients to support them both while the Doctor went back to school to change her area of study. The Nurse must have made an impression on Andy Richter during a visit, because she later appeared in one of his nightmares.

('Andy Richter Controls The Universe')

Meanwhile, the Doctor was obviously a quick learner, because by 2002, she had gone to work as an analyst for the IDC.

('ER')

But she also continued to practice medicine, as she was the attending physician who treated Mary-Kate and Ashley Burke after a brawl at a Chicago hockey game.

('Two Of A Kind')

Once her sister was re-established in her new profession, the Nurse moved to Los Angeles and worked for a short time as a nurse in a high school. 

('So Little Time') 

But she must have finally felt homesick and headed back East. There she got a job as an assisted-living nurse at a nursing home in the town of Harmony.

('Passions')

Missing her sister the Doctor/Analyst, the Nurse moved once again, this time back to Chicago. ('Friends With Benefits')

She was also involved when Dr. Jacob Hood began investigating an illegal cloning practice.

('The Eleventh Hour')  But since that took place in Seattle, it could also have been the Doctor, working undercover for the IDC by using her sister's identity as an alias.

And that's where we stand at the moment with those twin sisters in the medical profession.
Think what you will of cronyism, but I think I've made the case for why these two women played by Shirley Jordan deserve to be in the TV Crossover Hall of Fame. And should she ever play another nameless character from Boston, I'll link them to her characters in 'Boston Legal' and 'Ally McBeal'!

Besides... who better to celebrate on 06/06 under the sign of Gemini than a pair of twins?

BCnU!