MICK/BETH

When the creator of 'Moonlight' gave names to his two main characters, Mick St. John and Beth Turner, do you think he even thought of the Scottish Play's effect?

Just sayin', is all.....

HORSE MANEUVER

The title of the latest episode of 'Bones' was "Death In The Saddle", and it referred to the victim's corpse being left as if it was a champion race horse - his feet were ritualistically cut off and buried separately from the rest of the body; the hands had been lightly bound; there was evidence of a bit used in his mouth; and his stomach contents were of corn, raw oats and molasses (horse food).

When his name was revealed to be Edward Milner, Booth, Cam, and Hodgins all had a good laugh over him being "Mister Ed". Bones, of course, didn't get it.

Cam: "As in, a horse is a horse...."

(The others chimed in with the "of course, of course".)

Booth: "The famous Mister Ed!"

Luckily, none of them had to hit her over the head with it being a TV show, so we're spared a Zonk. Because long before 2007, Mister Ed was indeed famous in Toobworld. The secret that he had been a horse who could talk had long since been outed in some way after the 'Mr. Ed' series ended, but before the horse's death.

I assume there was probably some sensationalist news coverage over the story at first, but eventually the world probably came to accept the fact that a horse could talk. (I'm assuming the general public is still not aware that there is an island of such horses in the world - thanks to the TV adaptation of "Gulliver's Travels". It's the Toobworld contention that Mr. Ed was an escapee from Houyhnhm.)

Eventually, Mister Ed was offered the chance to capitalize on his fame, and he became known as the host of a nationally syndicated call-in radio talk show host (as seen in a broadcast but unsold TV pilot produced by Eddie Murphy - "What's Alan Watching?"). If I'm not mistaken, by that time he was living in North Carolina.

Dr. Cameron Saroyan was quoting the TV theme song, but again, this can be splained away. It wasn't used for a TV show, unless one was made about Mister Ed after he became famous. It was probably a novelty record by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans that capitalized on the fame of the talking horse.

And despite all the hoopla over the talking horse, somehow Dr. Temperance Brennan never knew the story while growing up.

BCnU!
Toby OB

ABE LINKIN'

Here was Frank's splainin as to why Jerry couldn't take a shift working the desk in the emergency room on 'ER':

"Didn't you hear? He moved to Alaska. He’s slinging pitchers of beer somewhere outside of Anchorage."

This was an in-joke reference to the fact that Abraham Benrubi, who played Jerry Marcovic, was now on the TV show 'Men In Trees' as Ben Jackson.

Unfortunately, this doesn't mean that we can take it as a Toobworld connection between the two shows. In the timeline for the TV Universe, the lives of Ben Jackson and Jerry Marcovic overlap - Ben had been already established in the town of Elmo, Alaska, while Ben was still in Chicago, Illinois.

It would have been nice to make the characters one and the same so that we could have a link between both shows, but it's just not to be. They could be identical cousins, however.....

BCnU!

Toby OB

STARTING TO REGISTER.....

It took only two minutes for 'Women's Murder Club' to make an unofficial Toobworld link to another TV show that's on the air now. The murder victim was Theresa Woo, a six-time Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the San Francisco Register. And the Register is where Dan Vasser, the leading character of 'Journeyman' works as well.

Another reporter at the paper ("WMC" version) is Cindy Thomas, but the office she works in looks nothing like the one where Dan is. (Maybe she's on another floor.)

The outside of the San Francisco Register building as seen in 'Women's Murder Club' is different from that in 'Journeyman'. It's more of a traditional building in style as seen on 'Journeyman', while its modern architecture with sweeping arch/ramps and a blindingly white facade in the pilot episode of 'Women's Murder Club'.

This is easy enough to splain away - different sides of the same building; the side from 'Women's Murder Club' was a much later addition. Or it could be that the paper has several different locations in town. As the Rozerem dream-beaver would say, "Whatever."

At any rate, it's doubtful we'll ever see a crossover. ABC airs 'Women's Murder Club' while 'Journeyman' is on NBC. And for the most part, with rare exceptions, networks don't believe in Television Without Borders. So no chance for Cindy and Dan to bump into each other at the paper, no matter which floor they're on!

So now the San Francisco Register has:

(The San Francisco Register from "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home")

'Journeyman'
'Women's Murder Club'
'Star Trek: The Next Generation'
'Sliders'
"Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home"

(The San Francisco Register from 'Journeyman')
(The San Francisco Register from 'Women's Murder Club')

BCnU!
Toby OB

HALF-NELSON

I believe in Television without borders. Not only should TV shows from different networks cross over with each other, but they should cross over with shows of different genres. We've seen it happen in the past - Professor Kingsfield of 'The Paper Chase' appeared on the sitcom 'The Associates'; Joe 'Mannix' was tied up with Lucille Carmichael on 'Here's Lucy'; Kwai Chang Caine of the martial arts procedural 'Kung Fu: The Legend Continues' took the place of his grandfather in the Old West and met 'Cheyenne' Bodie to boot.

But I will admit a lot of times such blendings could lead to disaster. I can't think of any TV show I would force into a match with the current 'Pushing Daisies', for example. (Commercials on the other hand.... wherever 'Pushing Daisies' takes place, I bet the people in those Target ads live there!)

That's why if we are to suggest a connection between shows of widely different genres, the theoretical link should be as minimal as possible. And I think last night's 'Mad Men' had another one besides the pozz'bility that the flashback took place on the same site where 'M*A*S*H' happened.

When Dick Whitman was recovering in the hospital, he received the Purple Heart which was meant for his superior officer. But Lt. Don Draper died back in Korea and Dick switched dog tags so that he was now Draper. After the little ceremony at his bedside, the officers moved on to the next bed to make yet another presentation - this time to a Lieutenant Nelson.

That's all we know of that guy in the next bed, and that's great. Any more detail and it would have been overkill, destroying the chance to make an outrageous link.

Here's what I'm thinking.....

Lt. Nelson's full name was Anthony Nelson, and he was a member of the Air Force. Although wounded, he chose to make the military his career and moved up in the service until he became a Captain and then a Major attached to NASA. He lived most of his adult life in Cocoa Beach and his life was changed forever when he washed up on a desert island after his space capsule made a splash landing. There he discovered a genie's bottle which contained a beautiful "young" woman who had been transformed into a genie back in 64 BC.
See? If we knew all of that about the Lt. Nelson in the bed next to "Don Draper", it would have completely destroyed the feel of the show. (And it wouldn't have been much fun for the sitcom either!) This way, 'Mad Men' and 'I Dream Of Jeannie' can slightly bump against each other in the mosaic of the TV cosmos and continue on their way unsullied by laugh tracks or adult themes, respectively.

BCnU!
Toby OB

"MAD MEN" M*A*S*H-UP?

With last night's episode of 'Mad Men' ("Nixon vs. Kennedy"), we learned the truth as to how Dick Whitman became Don Draper during the Korean Conflict. He and the real Don Draper were digging trenches to prepare for the construction of a M*A*S*H unit when they came under fire from snipers. After it was over, Don accidentally dropped his lighter into the fuel that had spilled into the trench from a shot tank of gas and the Lieutenant was caught in the resultant explosion of the fuel dump.

Could it be that this all happened on the future site of the M*A*S*H 4077? It's a pozz'bility - the surrounding hills certainly looked familiar.

BCnU!
Toby OB

HAWKINS FALLS

It took three episodes, but we got confirmation that DL Hawkins did indeed die from his gunshot wounds at the end of last season. His widow and son, Niki Sanders and Micah Hawkins, were seen visiting his grave.

"Daniel Lawrence Hawkins 1975 - 2007
Husband - Father - Hero"

I was kind of hoping his middle name might have been "Luther". That would have made my theory of relateeveety easier to present.

See, I'm thinking that DL has an older cousin by the name of Luther Hawkins, who was a physician's assistant in Boston twenty years before. During the 1990s, Luther went to medical school on the isle of Jantique.

I'm thinking he made it as a doctor, and if the picture to the right is any indication, I'd say he's doing pretty well for himself in that regard!

SHOWS CITED:
'Heroes'
'St. Elsewhere'
'Going To Extremes'

BCnU!
Toby OB

REM SHOT

CNN debuted a new song by R.E.M. last night on 'Anderson Cooper's 360º'. It's called "Day Is Done", and was used to underscore a video to promote Cooper's upcoming documentary "Planet In Peril" on CNN.

You can see this fusion here.

BCnU!
Toby OB

GLOVE STORY

At the end of the second episode for 'Pushing Daisies', we saw the refinements Ned made to his car to accommodate having Chuck ride in the front seat with him. There was a plate of safety plastiglass as a divider between the driver's and passenger's seat, with holes for them to converse and one of those gloves you see in testing facilities.

Chuck: What's that for?
Ned: It's um, for steering emergencies.
Narrator: He lied.
Chuck: Right... That's what I thought.
Narrator: She lied too.

And then they proceeded to hold hands using it.
Come on! I know I'm not the only one who recognized the glove's practicality for another classic front seat situation!

If the Farrelly Brothers were directing this show and not Tim Bur-# oops! Excuuuuuse me! Barry Sonnenfeld, they would have utilized that function!

Just sayin', is all.....

By the way, if Ned was so concerned with not touching Chuck, why did he stand next to her when they jumped into the pile of crash dummies? The chances were pretty good that they might have touched when they landed.

BCnU!
Toby OB

SAINTS BE RAISED

When Simon Templar, aka 'The Saint' tangled with the Longman family in the episode "The Man Who Gambled With Life', one of the Longman daughters bragged that they had quite an extensive file collected about him through their computer network. She claimed that they knew that Templar had no family. Simon took the news in stride; after all, why get upset when it was so obvious that their computer didn't have the correct information.

For Simon Templar has a son, at least in Toobworld. His name was Simon Templar as well. Simon Junior used his Daddy's nickname of "The Saint", as well as his vanity plate for his car. (He was played by Ian Ogilvy in the late 1970s in "Return Of The Saint". Daddy was of course Roger Moore in the sixties series.)

There are two other Simon Templars in the TV Universe, one played by Andrew Clarke and the other by Simon Dutton, and both in 1989. But the two of them would have to be relegated to alternate TV dimensions.

BCnU!
Toby OB