Retcon Alert! Father McCabe Is Alive and Well and Living in Arizona

Just noticed a pretty glaring continuity error, probably the only big one in the series.

Alex Corey (Jeff Allin) tells version one: Father McCabe
died while posing for his portrait.

Recently, I was browsing the Wikipedia entry for the show King of the Hill when I came across the term "retcon", which I had never heard before, but which refers to a phenomenon with which I am familiar. "Retcon", a verb, is a portmanteau of the term "retroactive continuity", which refers to "the alteration of previously established facts in a fictional work."

St. Elsewhere pulled a pretty big retcon, and I'm glad they did. In the third season episode, "Give the Boy a Hand", we are introduced to one of my favorite recurring characters, local artist Alex Corey (Jeff Allin). Alex has been hired to paint a portrait of St. Eligius's Chief of Services, Dr. Daniel Auschlander (Norman Lloyd), to celebrate his long tenure as the hospital's head administrator. The portrait is to hang in the chapel alongside that of Father Joseph McCabe, who founded the hospital in 1934, according to this scene.

I watched St. Elsewhere's seasons in reverse order on the Prime cable channel back in the nineties, and until I saw this episode, I had wondered just how the hell this guy ended up painting Dr. Auschlander's portrait, judging by his three subsequent appearances. Alex Corey is a very serious artist. He resents the assignment, and he's not shy about sharing his feelings. His father painted the portrait of Father McCabe, so he was given the job. In between gripes, he tells Dr. Auschlander that his father was amazed at how perfectly still Father McCabe could sit. That is, until the elder Corey discovered that his subject had died.

This version of events stands until the following season, when the history of St. Eligius was explored in the multiple-Emmy-winning two-part episode, "Time Heals". It starts off with a flashback to the hospital's grand opening in 1935. We learn that Father McCabe, rather than dying in his chair as an old man posing for his portrait, departed the hospital in 1955, dismissed after the hospital was sold to the City by the Catholic diocese, and was re-assigned to Arizona. Edward Herrmann earned an Emmy nomination for his guest appearance as Father McCabe.

Father McCabe (Edward Herrmann) is still alive, though
not exactly kicking, one year later.

Father McCabe returns in the season five premiere, "Where There's Hope, There's Crosby", so there's no doubt that his presumed demise in season three has been re-written. He comes to St. Eligius from Arizona suffering from ALS and about to take up residence in a nursing home. He is paralyzed, depressed, and he wants to be euthanized until he is inspired to carry on by a heartwarming encounter with Dr. Westphall's autistic son, Tommy.

These days, I'm accustomed to having back episodes of my favorite TV series at my fingertips, so I have to think back to my younger days to remember how they used to broadcast network TV shows. A few new episodes, then a rerun or two, either from a previous season or the current one. They'd spread out the twenty-two episodes from September to May. You'd see the old episodes again, but few people had VCRs back then, so it wasn't like you were expected to go back and look up what happened.

So I'm thinking stuff like this wasn't as big a deal back then, unless you were an obsessive detail hound like me. I feel the poetic license was justified in this case. Edward Herrmann as Father McCabe is a great addition to the show's mythology. After "Time Heals", they changed the portrait of Father McCabe in the chapel to resemble Herrmann. It's clear that the "Time Heals" version is the preferred version of events.

Update, February 1, 2014: Spotted another one... In season two's "Vanity", the voice-over in the TV documentary on Dr. Craig mentions that St. Eligius became a public hospital in the late forties. That got re-written in "Time Heals" as well.

Drs. Westphall and Auschlander regard the original portrait
of Father McCabe in "Breathless".

Update, February 21, 2014: The Father McCabe story actually changed twice, I've discovered. Early in season three, in the fifth episode, "Breathless", Daniel is in the chapel communing with the portrait of Father McCabe (he feels remorse over his handling of the nurses' strike and discovering that longtime maintenance supervisor Rawly Moreland is suffering from asbestosis from working at St. Eligius) when Dr. Donald Westphall (Ed Flanders) enters.

Daniel asks Donald if he ever met the man, and Donald says 'no'. (In "Time Heals"--Father McCabe is a mentor to the troubled young Westphall.) Then he states that McCabe founded the hospital in 1932.

Ah, things were so much simpler before we had all this digitization!

Watch "Time Heals" on YouTube

St. Elsewhere's greatest episode, a chronicle of the hospital on its fiftieth anniversary, is available on YouTube.

From 1965: Rookie nurse Helen Rosenthal (Christina
Pickles) meets young Luther Hawkins, whose mother
is working upstairs.

It's hard to dispute that St. Elsewhere has one episode that stands out as the series' single best offering. "Time Heals" parts one and two were the seventeenth and eighteenth episodes of season four, airing on back-to-back nights on February 19 and 20, 1986. The episode was St. Elsewhere's most decorated, winning four trophies at the 1986 Emmy Awards, for writing, art direction, sound mixing, and costuming.

The two-parter used flashbacks to tell the backstories of several characters, jumping back and forth by ten-year intervals. It's easy to see why they won Emmys for art direction and costuming--you can tell at a glance whether you're seeing St. Eligius in 1935, 1945, 1955, 1965, 1975 or 1985.

We get backstories for Dr. Donald Westphall (Ed Flanders), Dr. Mark Craig (William Daniels), Dr. Daniel Auschlander (Norman Lloyd), Nurse Helen Rosenthal (Christina Pickles), and the hospital's founder and administrator, Father Joseph McCabe (Edward Herrmann).

The episode features guest stars Kate Mulgrew, Brian Kerwin, William Russ and John Scott Clough as the O'Casey family. Terrence O'Casey (Kerwin) has been admitted with mysterious symptoms, and it's up to an injured Dr. Jack Morrison (David Morse), whose diagnostic skills leave much to be desired, to figure out what's wrong. Jack explores the O'Casey family history at St. Eligius to find the answer.

Thanks to YouTube user Janewayish for posting these as part of a tribute to Mulgrew, who played Captain Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager.

There's a playlist with all twelve parts, or you can check out the embedded videos below.

"Time Heals" Part 1 of 12:

"Time Heals" Part 2 of 12:

"Time Heals" Part 3 of 12:

"Time Heals" Part 4 of 12:

"Time Heals" Part 5 of 12:

"Time Heals" Part 6 of 12:

"Time Heals" Part 7 of 12:

"Time Heals" Part 8 of 12:

"Time Heals" Part 9 of 12:

"Time Heals" Part 10 of 12:

"Time Heals" Part 11 of 12:

"Time Heals" Part 12 of 12:

Mark Harmon, Sexiest Man Alive, 1986

Yes, the second-ever "Sexiest Man Alive" was a St. Elsewhere cast member.

Here's the article from the January 27, 1986 issue of People magazine, "Charmin' Harmon", declaring St. Elsewhere's Mark Harmon, who had just wrapped his run as plastic surgeon and resident eye candy, Dr. Bobby Caldwell, the year's Sexiest Man Alive. The title of "Sexiest Man Alive" had been initiated the year before, as the tag line of a Mel Gibson cover, and since then, the feature has become an annual tradition (with a brief hiatus in the early 90s). Harry Hamlin from L.A. Law would "win" the following year, and after selecting John F. Kennedy, Jr. in 1988, the honour has strictly been bestowed on Hollywood film stars.

St. Elsewhere actually holds the distinction of being the only television series to have two main cast members be declared People's SMA, with Denzel Washington, Dr. Philip Chandler himself, earning the distinction ten years later. Not only was Denzel the first black doctor on a TV medical drama, but he was the first black SMA as well.

The thing I found interesting about the timing of the article was that it coincided with the demise of his character, who had turned heel during season 4. I guess they admired his dramatic chops, which, as he states in the article, weren't really put to much use in his first two seasons on the show. Mark Harmon's last appearance on St. Elsewhere was in the February 12, 1986 episode, "Family Affair", two weeks after his People cover story, an article which reveals upcoming plot developments in a way that would be considered spoiling these days.

I never knew that Harmon requested that the writers do something interesting and "get excited" about his character. The article echoes my reaction to that revelation:

You can just hear the show's writers now: "Is this what you had in mind, Harmon, heh-heh-heh?" Well, it was, precisely, even though it meant a hasty exit from the show recently nominated for an Emmy as TV's Outstanding Drama Series.