Monday, January 1, 2024

THE DOCTOR & CAPTAIN AMOS BURKE


The second best place for TV series of any era to cross over with each other is not to be found in their home medium of television; it would be in comic books/strips.  (The best would be the metafictional universe of literature.  That depends only on the written word and the imagination of the author, without regard to the fates of the original actors or for copyright concerns… if couched in veiled references if needed.)

Comic books would require collaboration with an artist, but at least the end result would provide the look of the story for those too lazy to use their own imagination.

The TARDIS Wiki noted several comic strip crossovers between ‘Doctor Who’ and one of my favorite detective series, ‘Burke’s Law’ back in the mid-60s.  Of their three examples, “Who Killed Death?”/”Daleks Suffer Heavy Losses!” had the strongest case of a crossover.  Here’s what they had to say about it:


"Burke's Law" is a television series created by Frank D. Gilroy, Ivan Goff, and Ernest Kinoy which originally aired on ABC from 20 September 1963 - 12 January 1966. It was later spun off into a series of comics published in TV Century 21 alongside "The Daleks".

The series follows the title character of Amos Burke, a member of the Los Angeles Homicide Bureau who works alongside some other members of the bureau.

As the conceit of TV Century 21 was that all its series took place in a single universe, several Burke's Law stories from its pages crossed over freely with the Doctor Who universe. This included references to Burke's Law's characters and ongoing storylines in the prose "cover stories".

"Who Killed Death?" was a "Burke's Law" comic printed in TV Century 21 in  July 31 - August 07, 1965.

The story crossed over with the "Doctor Who" universe by marking the reappearance of the titular character Irvin Death, who had debuted in the Dalek short story "Daleks Suffer Heavy Losses!".

The titular character is, fittingly, only referred to as "Death" in this story. He is given the full name "Irvin Death" in "Daleks Suffer Heavy Losses!".

The other two stories which dealt with the supposed crossovers were:

"Who Killed Elias Hoodreim?" [April 24, 1965]
&
"Who Killed Lord Nelson?" [July31 - August 07,1965]

If you want to read about those stories, click here.

Captain Burke dealt with a lot of odd colorful characters during the run of 'Burke's Law' and most of the incarnations of the Doctor would have provided plenty for the Homicide team to deal with.  Think of Detective Tim Tilson trying to figure out Jamie McCrimmon's perspective on the world, while Sgt. Les Hart was hung up over him wearing a "skirt".

With 'Columbo' sharing the same dimension with both of those shows, maybe Detective Duggan (from "City of Death") could have been sent to Los Angeles as the English contribution to the exchange program while Columbo was in London for the "Dagger of the Mind" case.

What crossovers can you picture between 'Burke's Law' and 'Doctor Who'?  Let me know!


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