Most TV, movies, books… fiction in general don’t exist. This is obvious. That’s sort of the point of fiction. but what if it didn’t exist beyond the obvious fact that we imagined it. What if all we didn’t even imagine it… or maybe most of us didn’t. What if the vast majority of fiction ever produced actually happened in th daydream of one single autistic boy on a single evening in the Spring of 1988. This is the Tommy Westphall hypothesis, based on the finale of a mostly otherwise forgotten (but critically acclaimed) dramedy, St. Elsewhere. This is actually a well known theory amongst hardcore television geekdom and we’ve eluded to it in passing before, but we thought it was time we dove into it. So on today’s episode, Wayne and Mav welcome William Careri, data specialist, designer, and Tommy Westphall expert, to talk about the Tommy Westphall Universe, why it is special, why it’s notable, and what we can learn from it. Listen and let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Citations and Links:
- Episode 332, which directly inspired this conversation
- Episode 162, where we also talked a bit about this
- Will’s article on the Tommy Westphall Universe on Nightengale
- The Tommy Westphall Universe wiki
- Thank you to Maximilian’s thoughtForm Music for our theme
- Will’s Website
- Follow Mav on BlueSky: @chrismaverick
- Follow Wayne on Instagram: @tetroc2017
- Follow us on BlueSky: @voxpopcast
- Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/voxpopcast
- Subscribe to our YouTube channel
- Make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever podcasts are found and please leave us a review!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download