(From The Archives) CROSSOVER CONTEST ENTRY
(Note: The following was my entry in a contest Time magazine held in the late 1990s - I forget the exact year right off - in which the publication asked its readers to submit ideas for an episode of a television series in which characters from another series make an appearance. The winner was some dummy that had Homer SImpson turning up on an episode of "E.R." I still like MY idea better....)
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Dear Time:
My name is John Small. I live in Ravia, Oklahoma, and the following is my synopsis for the "wild and wonderful crossover between two shows" as called for in your Contest #4. Although I should warn you that it is actually a crossover between more than two shows, as you will see:
X-FILES: THE FINAL EPISODE
(Guest-Starring The Cast Of "DIAGNOSIS: MURDER" - among others)
Acting upon information obtained during his final, fatal confrontation with the Cigarette Smoking Man (in the previous episode), FBI agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) goes in search of the mysterious true ringleader behind the long-running alien conspiracy. Utilizing tips provided by several "backdoor" sources - including former P.I. turned Naval Intelligence officer Thomas Magnum (Tom Selleck) and an elderly Korean War medical corps vet named Burns - Mulder and partner Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) follow a trail that eventually takes them to Los Angeles, where Scully is reunited with an old medical school chum, Dr. Jesse Travis (Charlie Schlatter), one of the ER doctors at Community General Hospital.
Jesse’s colleague, Dr. Mark Sloan (Dick Van Dyke) becomes involved in the investigation after his son, police detective Steve Sloan (Barry Van Dyke) is injured while pursuing a mysterious golden-skinned man who may just be the conspiracy ringleader Mulder has been searching for. Mulder, Scully and Dr. Sloan eventually track the Golden Man (special guest star Brent Spiner) to an abondoned warehouse, where the Golden Man reveals himself to be an android serving aboard a 24th Century starship.
Furthermore, the android insists, Mulder and Sloan do not exist at all but are merely characters in an interactive Holodeck program which Scully - an intern on the starship's medical staff - has created for her own entertainment during her off-duty hours. As proof, the android offers brief glimpses of other Holodeck programs in which Sloan is a TV comedy writer and Mulder is the host of a sexually-explicit cable anthology series. When Mulder protests that all he has been shown simply cannot be, Scully simply smiles and says, "You were right - the truth really is out there," and points to the Holodeck entrance.
Then she commands the computer to end the program; Mulder's world fades out of existence, taking Mulder with it. During the final scene, however, we learn that the android has developed a fondness for the Sloans and has made them the central characters of other Holodeck programs: one in which the younger Sloan is part of a group of space refugees looking for Earth, and another in which the elder Sloan drives a magical car and cavorts with a nanny who flies around on an umbrella (special guest appearance by Julie Andrews)...
In : Pop Culture
Tags: "crossovers" "pop culture" "tv & movies"
John A. Small is an award-winning newspaper journalist, columnist and broadcaster whose work has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He and his wife Melissa were married in 1986; they have two sons, Joshua Orrin (born 1991) and William Ian (born 1996).
Mr. Small is the News Editor and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, OK. He obtained his nickname, "Bard of the Lesser Boulevards," from a journalism colleague - the late Phil Byrum - in recognition of the success of his popular newspaper column, "Small Talk." (In addition to the many awards the column itself has received over the years, a radio version of "Small Talk" earned an award for "Best Small Market Commentary" from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1998.)
John was born in Oklahoma City in 1963; lived in the Bradley-Bourbonnais-Kankakee area of Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony); then returned to his native state in 1991, where he currently resides in the Tishomingo/Ravia area. He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais in 1991. The years between high school and college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something.
In addition to his professional career as a journalist he has published two short story collections: "Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West" (2007), a collection of western stories; and "Something In The Air" (2011), a more eclectic collection. He was also a contributor to the 2005 Locus Award-nominated science fiction anthology "Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe," edited by Win Scott Eckert. In additon he has written a stage play and a self-published cookbook; served as project editor for a book about the JFK assassination entitled "The Men On The Sixth Floor"; and has either published or posted on the Internet a number of essays, stories and poems.
He has also won writing awards from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Library of Poetry. He is a past president of the Johnston County Chamber of Commerce in Tishomingo; was a charter member and past president of the Johnston County Reading Council, the local literacy advocacy and "friends of the library" organization; served as Johnston County's first-ever Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator in 1994-95; served two terms as chairman of the Johnston County (OK) Democratic Party; and has taught journalism classes for local Boy Scout Merit Badge Fairs. He is a member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society.
