There was more to the St. Elsewhere ending than has been presented:
The dad of the autisitic kid was a pre-eminent surgeon during the run of the show, but in the last episode he was revealed to be just a blue collar worker and not a surgeon at all. The chief of surgery (i’m just remembering this, maybe he was a bigwig admin kind of guy) during the run of the show ended up being the blue collar Grandad of the autistic kid in the last episode. In the final episode, as indicated by others, the kid just imagined the whole St Elsewhere series had occurred in a snowglobe that he stared at “autistically.” BTW the autistic son of the surgeon appeared on a regular basis during the show, so it all kind of tied together, more than you might expect.
Correct my recollections if I’m wrong above. It’s been awhile.
I think you’re right - my memories are fairly faded but that does seem to follow what I recall.
Specifically that the boy did appear in the show, and that he dreamed in people he knew into his St. Elsewhere daydreams. Now that I’m thinking about it, it reminds me of the end of the Wizard of Oz - Dorothy’s adventures were “just” a dream, and she saw people she knew in it, playing different roles like the Tin Man, etc.
Yep- read the Wikipedia page on it, too, not just the sig line link, and all about the Tommy Westphall Universe Theory of television reality. It goes over those detail of the last ep. you guys mention, too.