Eureka, Stargate, Inception... Blogger Alasdair Stuart considers a parallel world were top TV shows and films tie in to each other's reality
Decades ago, St Elsewhere finished with the big reveal that the entire show might be the figment of one character's imagination (Google "The Tommy Westphall universe" – it's worth it ). The interesting thing is how many shows tied in with St Elsewhere and in turn must have taken place in Tommy's universe.
But what about TV shows that should tie together, and haven't? Or perhaps haven't... yet.
Stargate: NCIS
The Destiny situation is the final straw, and, after years of planning for the eventuality, the Stargate program is made public. The SGC finds itself swamped in media attention, with General O'Neill the spectacularly curmudgeonly eye of the storm. Atlantis begins preparations to launch at the head of a rescue armada to bring the Destiny back but on the eve of launch, a bomb is found in the central tower and an entire squad of marines are murdered, apparently by each other. With the full glare of the world's media focussed on them, General O'Neill has no choice; he formally merges the NCIS and Army's CID with the SGC, drafting them in to aid with security and pulls strings to get one particular team attached to the case; the major case unit run by Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs.
CSI: Brass Shields
Detective Jim Brass is beginning to burn out. Years of experience in Vegas is starting to take it's toll and the normally avuncular, deadpan detective is starting to get worn thin, like his old friend Gil Grissom before him. When Brass gets into a stand up argument with Sara Sidle over evidence gathering, even he realises that he needs something, or someone, that will help.
Detective Donald Flack is starting to feel like a big fish in a small pond. Years of experience in New York have put Flack in the media spotlight and at the top of his game and... it's no longer enough. When Flack's involved in a shooting that almost goes bad, even he realises that he needs a change of scene. Then, Jim Brass calls with an interesting offer – a year in Vegas. A year as his second in command. A year somewhere new.
Thief Of Dreams
With Dominic Cobb united with his family and out of the game, Arthur finds himself at a loose end. Men like Arthur don't like to be at loose ends and men like Eames make it their business to make work for idle hands. Eames tracks Arthur down, appeals to his sense of boredom, and adventure, and leaves him with a single, tantalising question. Across the world, more and more people are dreaming about a man with a red hat. A man who wants to give the people who dream him a message:
Here comes the flood.
Aided by Professor Stephen Miles, Yusuf and Ariadne, Arthur and Eames begin to track down the man with the red hat, following him through the dreams he's touched until they begin to realise the man with the red hat has a plan, and they're part of it...
A Town Called Cicely
When an explorer who went missing a hundred years ago is hit by a logging truck in Alaska, the only person more startled than the explorer is the truck driver who watches him get up, dust himself off and politely ask for a ride to Eureka. The truck driver calls it in, the call is passed up the line and Jack Carter is put on a transporter to the middle of Alaska.
What he finds is extraordinary; the explorer leads Jack to a second Eureka, one set up by a group called The Followers of Cicely a hundred years before Eureka was even created. Cicely is gloriously eccentric town, with one plane in, one plane out and an astronaut real estate mogul who lives on the edge of town. Jack finds it utterly charming, until the first time he hears the trees sing, and discovers exactly how old the bartender is... Cicely is Eureka without any boundaries, science and art in the raw. Cicely has secrets too and one of them is the book held in the mayor's office. The book that describes, in detail, the arrival of Jack Carter from Eureka and the terrible events that follow it...
The UN.it
With the growing, global scale of alien threat and still reeling from the devastation caused by the Dalek invasion, to say nothing of the 456 incident, UNIT are forced to regroup. As a result, Colonel Mace massively increases the organisation's military strength by recruiting large amounts of special forces operators from various countries.
The American division of the organisation is based at Fort Griffith in the US. The 303rd Logistical Studies group, in reality a Delta Force unit, must now split their time between the anti-terrorist and combat operations that they have carried out in the past and the alien threats which form part of their new remit.
This conflict of interest is felt most acutely amongst Alpha Team. Now joined by both Martha Jones and civilian operator Mickey Smith, Jonas Blane and his men find their first job is dealing with reports of aliens escaping from a facility near Salt Lake City...
This is the personal article by blogger Alasdair Stuart. For more from Alasdair, please join us tomorrow on www.sfx.co.uk .
