Nicely done crossovers

[Art Vandelay]

Just yesterday, we were watching the Voyager episode State of Flux, and I thought about how subtle and nicely done the nod to DS9's Second Skin is, which aired a few months earlier. (You know, the whole business with Cardassians going undercover posing as Bajorans.)

Which in turn got me thinking how clever it was to have the Enterprise two-parter In a Mirror Darkly be both a prequel to Mirror, Mirror and a sequel to The Tholian Web - circles within circles.

Are there any other subtle, cool and/or clever interseries crossovers you can think of?

(And I'm not talking about the way the Maquis storyline weaved through TNG and DS9 and back to TNG to set up Voyager. Good episodes, all in all, but there was too much planning and calculation involved for it to be considered "nicely done".)

 

[Kirkman1987]

As far as the more subtle crossovers, I loved seeing The Iconian gateways show up on DS9.

 

[Valin]

Using Wolf359 as part of Sisko's backstory in "The Emissary."

 

[JiNX-01]

Using Wolf359 as part of Sisko's backstory in "The Emissary."

I liked this one, too.

 

[Art Vandelay]

As far as the more subtle crossovers, I loved seeing The Iconian gateways show up on DS9.

That was a great crossover, to be sure. I just wish they'd have the Gateway be more than just a MacGuffin in To the Death. Some of the Jem'Hadar could and should have gone through, but alas, they never followed up on this notion.

 

[Admiral Shran]

I thought the name dropping of the Battle of Wolf 359 in VOY: The Killing Game was awesome.

I remember when I first saw that episode I thought it would be amazing for Part II to focus on the battle, complete with cameos from Patrick Stewart and Avery Brooks.

 

[MHT1138]

I like Admiral Sulu being the person who gets Chakotay into Starfleet. We learn in one of the Captain's Table books that it is Admiral Demora Sulu. I also like thqt Boothby shows up as one of the disguised members of species 8472 in the episode In the Flesh, and that he's the one in charge.

 

[lurok]

^This. Love Boothby. And another good Wolf 359 x-over: Marika in VOY: Survival Instinct. . Good RDM episode and lot of pathos. Man, Locutus has a lot to answer for...

I thought the name dropping of the Battle of Wolf 359 in VOY: The Killing Game was awesome.

I remember when I first saw that episode I thought it would be amazing for Part II to focus on the battle, complete with cameos from Patrick Stewart and Avery Brooks.

I'd love a fan edit (or in another TV universe, a telemovie) remaking BoBW/Wolf 359 with all the disparate story threads. Would be dramatic and moving...

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

- Tuvok (mirror) appearing in DS9

- Gul Evek appearing in TNG, DS9, and VOY

- Bashir appearing in Birthright, and actually contributing well to the story

- Thomas Riker in Defiant

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I'd say Evek was one of the best ideas--in all three series we had consistent Cardassian personnel clearly assigned to the DMZ, which is what you'd realistically expect. It's not even "small universe syndrome," either--it's a logical tie between all of those interrelated plots.

Now if only we could've had that coordination with resource use on Voyager, and kept track of exactly what the ship did and didn't have at any given time!

 

[Art Vandelay]

I'd say Evek was one of the best ideas--in all three series we had consistent Cardassian personnel clearly assigned to the DMZ, which is what you'd realistically expect. It's not even "small universe syndrome," either--it's a logical tie between all of those interrelated plots.

Oh yes, the idea of Evek (AKA Chopper Dave) appearing on all three series as the "Senior DMZ Cardassian" was brilliant. I just wish he hadn't dropped off the radar all of a sudden. He was in five episodes of the 1993/1994 season, and then in 1994/1995 he only appeared in Caretaker, never to be seen again in any of the upcoming Maquis/Badlands episodes.

Now if only we could've had that coordination with resource use on Voyager, and kept track of exactly what the ship did and didn't have at any given time!

I know! It was clear from day one that the writers did not have the cojones to give us something like a full season Year of Hell style, but at least some consistency would have been nice.

 

[Admiral Shran]

^ Actually, that exact thing was Braga's idea for Year of Hell - for it to be a season long arc. Voyager would enter a region of space controlled by the Krenim, who would make life of Voyager a living hell. There would be no time travel element and would only end once Voyager left Krenim space. Then they would slowly rebuild.

The studio, however, nixed the idea and forced the showrunners to make it a two-parter and add it the time travel element.

This is one thing that Braga can't be criticized on.

 

[Art Vandelay]

^ Wow, I didn't believe he had it in him.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Well, the man has had some absolutely god-awful ideas (Threshold and TATV come immediately to my mind). But, he does have some good ones as well. The problem is that most of his really good ideas were destroyed by studio interference.

He also planned for the first season of ENT to be a season long arc set entirely on Earth while the ship was being constructed and Archer slowly assembled the entire crew. But, once again, the studio nixed the idea and forced them to have stand-alone episodes with a healthy dose of time travel added in, which is why they had to come up with the whole Temporal Cold War idea.

 

[Art Vandelay]

^ Which makes me wonder why the DS9 writers got away with murder again and again... Didn't the studio care at all about what happened on the station?

I like Enterprise, I even tolerate TATV, but this would have been epic.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Oh yes, the idea of Evek (AKA Chopper Dave) appearing on all three series as the "Senior DMZ Cardassian" was brilliant. I just wish he hadn't dropped off the radar all of a sudden. He was in five episodes of the 1993/1994 season, and then in 1994/1995 he only appeared in Caretaker, never to be seen again in any of the upcoming Maquis/Badlands episodes.

I bet the guy got demoted after that incident, or executed. Who knows...

Now if only we could've had that coordination with resource use on Voyager, and kept track of exactly what the ship did and didn't have at any given time!

I know! It was clear from day one that the writers did not have the cojones to give us something like a full season Year of Hell style, but at least some consistency would have been nice.

Even if it hadn't been totally hellish all the time, just keeping track of resources and being consistent would be useful.

 

[Admiral Shran]

^ Which makes me wonder why the DS9 writers got away with murder again and again... Didn't the studio care at all about what happened on the station?

I like Enterprise, I even tolerate TATV, but this would have been epic.

It's because DS9 was run in syndication. VOY and ENT, on the other hand, were the flagship shows for UPN.

As a result, DS9 was given a much wider latitude than either of the other shows. The studio was constantly meddling in their affairs in attempts to regain the high ratings that TNG enjoyed for their new network. Of course, as studio interference always does, it backfired.

I also think that Rick Berman took a much more hands-off approach to DS9, focusing more on VOY and later ENT. He still ran things, but left the day-to-day things to others.

 

[Art Vandelay]

^ I'll never get behind the studio logic: bland = potential success.

Taking chances is what hit television is all about. Too bad both Voyager and Enterprise preceded Lost...

 

[Admiral Shran]

I guess they thought that since bland worked so well for TNG that it was the only thing that worked for TV.

But, you're absolutely correct about risk-taking. ENT finally begin to realize it's true potential when they were allowed to take risks with the third and fourth seasons.

 

[Art Vandelay]

^ I think that compared to the rest of "late 80s TV land", the first four season of TNG were anything but bland. (Oh, how I wish they had followed up on Conspiracy!) It was after that when the show got into the habit of playing it safe. Also, it helped a lot that the cast had chemistry in abundance. Something that the Enterprise cast only had to a degree. Risk-taking stories could have compensated for that lack of chemistry.