JamesG
06-10-2026, 01:18 AM
The acclaimed 80s drama "St. Elsewhere", which ran for six seasons from 1982 through 1988, helped define the medical drama for television and launched a little star by the name of Denzel Washington.
It also has a controversial ending.
The show concludes by revealing the whole show was the daydream of Tommy, the autistic son of Dr. Donald Westphall (Ed Flanders). In reality, Westphall was a construction worker, and Tommy had been imagining the events of the show while staring at a snow globe with a tiny model of St. Eligius Hospital inside it.
In a cast reunion for Entertainment Weekly in 2012, star William Daniels said, I think a lot of the cast didn't care for [the finale] at all."
Bonnie Bartlett, who played Ellen Craig, didn't mince words. [The writers] wanted to do an ending to the show in a way so that it could never be brought back again. They really wanted to kill the show, she said.
And they figured out a way: Okay, we won't have any reunions, nothing like that. And I was very upset. I thought it was terrible. A terrible ending!
https://ew.com/actors-unhappy-with-tv-finales-emilia-clarke-michael-c-hall-11993877
It also has a controversial ending.
The show concludes by revealing the whole show was the daydream of Tommy, the autistic son of Dr. Donald Westphall (Ed Flanders). In reality, Westphall was a construction worker, and Tommy had been imagining the events of the show while staring at a snow globe with a tiny model of St. Eligius Hospital inside it.
In a cast reunion for Entertainment Weekly in 2012, star William Daniels said, I think a lot of the cast didn't care for [the finale] at all."
Bonnie Bartlett, who played Ellen Craig, didn't mince words. [The writers] wanted to do an ending to the show in a way so that it could never be brought back again. They really wanted to kill the show, she said.
And they figured out a way: Okay, we won't have any reunions, nothing like that. And I was very upset. I thought it was terrible. A terrible ending!
https://ew.com/actors-unhappy-with-tv-finales-emilia-clarke-michael-c-hall-11993877