Programming On Infinite Earths

Last week, TV network The CW finished Crisis On Infinite Earths, its 5-part series where its various superhero TV shows had a "crossover event" that mirrored -- but, thankfully, didn't match -- the 1985 DC Comics event created by comic book writer Marv Wolfman, who made a guest appearance in the 5th and last episode.

This is not the 1st time that characters from one TV show appeared on another. In fact, it's quite common. And we can even name the "worlds" or "fictional universes" in which it's happened.

Earth-A: All In the Family and its spinoffs take place on this world. AITF spun off Maude, which spun off Good Times. AITF also spun off The Jeffersons, which spun off Checking In.

Bea Arthur played Maude Findlay, and she also played Dorothy on The Golden Girls. Rue McClanahan played Vivian Harmon on Maude, and she also played Blanche Devereaux on The Golden Girls. That show spun off Empty Nest, which spun off Nurses, all taking place in Miami, and there were crossovers.

I'd like to believe it took place on the same world as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which had Betty White as Sue Ann Nivens, because Betty also played Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls. Lou Grant was a spinoff of The MTMS, so they definitely took place on the same world.

Maybe we can say that, barring evidence to the contrary, all TV shows not otherwise mentioned take place on this world.

Earth-B: B for Brooklyn. Welcome Back, Kotter was set in Brooklyn, at fictional James Buchanan High School in the 1970s. Head of the Class was set in Brooklyn, at fictional Millard Fillmore High School, also named for a pre-Civil War President, in the 1980s. Granted, that doesn't mean they took place on the same world. But the parallels are uncanny, including the unconventional teacher, the cynical principal, and the misfit kids -- remedial ones in the former, advanced-placement geniuses in the latter.

Another 1970-80s ABC sitcom, Barney Miller, would have fit right in, taking place across the East River in Manhattan, at the fictional 12th Precinct. However, in the final episode, the 12th was closed down as the New York Police Department redrew its precinct lines. This rules out the 2010s cop show Castle taking place on the same world: Their world's 12th Precinct was still in use, albeit in a different building.

One thing I've noticed: Castle (set at the fictional 12th), NYPD Blue (set at the fictional 15th), Life On Mars (set at the fictional 125th) and The Mysteries of Laura (set at the fictional 2nd, and the only one of these not on ABC, rather on NBC) all used the same building for their exterior shots: The 5th Precinct, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. So none of these shows takes place on the same world as any of the others.

Throw in the fact that Cagney & Lacey was set at the 14th Precinct, which does exist in real life, but is usually called "Midtown South," a name that was referenced on Barney Miller several times, but their neighborhood was called "Alphabet City" because of Avenues A, B, C and D, and that same subset of the Lower East Side was patrolled by the 15th squad of NYPD Blue, and we've got, to use a New York expression, a bit of a kerfuffle.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine takes place in the fictional 99th Precinct, and had a crossover with New Girl. Might these shows take place on the same world WBK, HOTC and Barney Miller? What about other Brooklyn-based shows? How about The Honeymooners? Or The Patty Duke Show? Or Living Single? The Cosby Show was set in Brooklyn, and A Different World was a spinoff of it. And The King of Queens and Long Island-based Everybody Loves Raymond had a crossover.

Earth-D. The Dick Van Dyke Show starred Dick Van Dyke as Rob Petrie, a writer for a TV variety show named The Alan Brady Show. That show existed on the same world as Mad About You, about 30 years earlier. Not only was The ABS mentioned on a 1995 episode MAY, but Carl Reiner played Brady on it. And Helen Hunt played both Jamie Buchman in the present and her mother, Theresa Stemple (then using her maiden name, Terry Cooper) in a flashback scene of The ABS.

And MAY was on the same world as Seinfeld and Friends. (And a now-forgotten sitcom titled The Single Guy.) We know this because Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld (Michael Richards) appeared on MAY, and Ursula the waitress on MAY turned out to be the twin sister of Phoebe Buffay on Friends
(both played by Lisa Kudrow, and confusing the hell out of MAY's Jamie and Leila Kenzle as Fran Devanow when they dropped by Central Perk).

However, Mary Tyler Moore's presence as Laura Petrie on The DVDS does not necessarily put that show on the same world as The MTMS.

Earth-F: For for Friday. ABC's "TGIF" sitcoms were all linked. Perfect Strangers spun off Family Matters, whose character Steve Urkel (Jaleel White) made guest appearances on Full House and Step By Step. The actions of Salem the cat (voiced by Nick Bakay) on Sabrina the Teenage Witch affected Teen Angel, You Wish, Boy Meets World, and, retroactively, BMW's successor series Girl Meets World.

Earth-G: It's been established that the ABC soap operas General Hospital, its spinoff Port Charles, and One Live to Live take place on the same world. It is safe to presume that another ABC soap, All My Children, also does so.

Earth-H: H for Hooterville. CBS "rural" comedies The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres and Petticoat Junction had crossovers in the 1960s.

Earth-I: I for The Incredible Hulk. The Bill Bixby & Lou Ferrigno CBS version of 1977-82 was different from the comics' version. The human form was still a scientist who made a mistake with radiation, but the method and his motivation were different, and so was his name: The Robert Bruce Banner of the comics (sometimes "Bob" but usually "Bruce") became David Bruce Banner (always "David," and, to hide his identity, using last names starting with B, such as Brown and Baxter).

In 1988, '89 and '90, The Incredible Hulk had return movies that featured versions of Thor and Daredevil that weren't much like either the comics or the MCU, and bombed so badly that neither got the show these "backdoor pilots" were trying to establish. While there were no other crossovers, it's likely that this world also includes the bad Spider-Man, Captain America and Doctor Strange TV-movies of the late 1970s.

Earth-L: L for Los Angeles. Jack Webb first produced, directed, frequently wrote, and starred as Detective Sergeant Joe Friday on, the police drama Dragnet from 1951 to 1959, using one of many lines from the show that entered the public consciousness: "This is the city: Los Angeles, California."

With his production company, Mark VII Limited, he revived it from 1967 to 1970, but he didn't stop there. He also produced the police drama Adam-12 and the medical drama Emergency! And he had characters cross over between the 3 series, all on NBC.

Emergency! was created by Harry Jack Bloom, who also created Hec Ramsey, a combination Western and police drama set in 1901 Oklahoma, starring Richard Boone, who had previously played the cultured gunman-for-hire Paladin on Have Gun -- Will Travel. On an episode of that show, which was on CBS, Paladin cites a familiarity with the career of Marshal Matt Dillon, the lead character of the defining CBS Western, Gunsmoke, suggesting that they took place on the same world.

Boone described Ramsey as "Paladin, but fatter." And, clearly, older. So those 3 shows can be said to have taken place on the same world. Was it the same world as Dragnet, Adam-12 and Emergency?

What about Bonanza, on NBC, set in 1860s Virginia City, Nevada? As far as I know, there is no link between it and any other show.

What about other L.A.-set crime-related shows of the 1970s? Columbo? The Rockford Files? CHiPs? Quincy, M.E.? I know of nothing that would rule those shows out. Starsky & Hutch took place in fictional Bay City, which would suggest San Francisco, but the city was said to be in Southern California, and was clearly filmed in L.A.

Worth noting: ABC's Modern Family takes place in Los Angeles, but, on their world, Game of Thrones does not exist. Instead, there is an analogue show of which Phil Dunphy (Ty Burrell) and his brother-in-law Mitchell Pritchett (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) are fans of to the point of cosplaying at a convention.

Earth-M: M for Mayberry. The Danny Thomas Show spun off The Andy Griffith Show, which spun off Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.

Earth-N: N for Navy. All the NCIS shows, their base show JAG, and the recent CBS reboots of Hawaii Five-O, Magnum, P.I. and MacGyver take place on the same world.

The original Magnum had a crossover with Murder, She Wrote. But, as far as I know, they can't be linked with any other show, including the original Hawaii Five-O (whose last episode aired on April 5, 1980, 8 months before Magnum debuted in Hawaii on CBS) or the original MacGyver.

Earth-P: P for Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Mr. Rogers made a guest appearance on Sesame Street, and that show's Grover made one on The Electric Company. And Spider-Man appeared on The Electric Company. But this was a very different Spidey than appeared in comic books and any movie thus far seen, so it's not Tom Holland's version from the current Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Earth-R: R for Rhimes. All of Shonda Rhimes' "Shondaland" shows are linked, including Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, How to Get Away With Murder, Station 19, and Scandal. Too bad, because Scandal shows things to be truly screwed-up. Seriously: Would you want to live in a world where the choices for President are Fitz Grant and Sally Langston?

Earth-S: S for Star Trek. The world we've known from 1990 or so onward doesn't match the "Star Trek Timeline." No, we haven't gotten out of our solar system by the dawn of the 2020s. But we also avoided the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s. But all the Trek shows and movies take place in that timeline.

These include the past sequence of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), the past sequence of Star Trek: First Contact (2063), Star Trek: Enterprise (2151-61), Star Trek: Discovery (2256), Star Trek (a.k.a. "The Original Series," 2266-69), Star Trek: The Animated Series (2270), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (2273), Star Trek II, III, IV and V (2285-86), Star Trek VI and the early part of Star Trek: Generations (2293), Star Trek: The Next Generation (2364-70), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (2369-75), Star Trek: Voyager (2371-77), the TNG movies (2371-79), and, debuting this week, Star Trek: Picard (which begins in 2399).

The J.J. Abrams movies with the Star Trek label? Ask Captain Kirk (the only one, played by William Shatner) would say, "Go to the Devil!"

While The Orville shares many similarities with Star Trek, and especially appears to be an homage to The Next Generation, it clearly does not take place in the same universe.

Earth-T: This is "the Tommy Westphal Universe," inspired by the last scene of the NBC medical drama St. Elsewhere, in 1988. Based on characters that appeared on that show, and characters from that show that appeared on others, and other references dropped, we know that this world includes The White Shadow, Cheers, Frasier, Homicide: Life On the Street, The X-Files and its spinoff The Lone Gunmen, Millennium, every Law & Order show, and every show in NBC's current One Chicago franchise.

Earth-W: As far as I know, The West Wing (NBC, 1999-2006) has never crossed over with another show. But it did the "fictional President" thing better than any show ever has, so I'm giving it its own world.

The Peanuts specials and The Beverly Hillbillies were mentioned on The West Wing, ruling them out as taking place on the same world.

Do you know of any others? I'm not doing any Simpsons-related crossovers. You want those, write your own blog.

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