ST. ELSEWHERE: Season 6 (1987-88) Clip - (The Final Scene)

This is the final scene from "The Last One", the 22nd episode (137th overall) from the sixth and final season of NBC's 1982-88 medical drama "St. Elsewhere". This served as the series' final episode and is noted for having one of the most memorable moments in television history. The original airdate was Wednesday, May 25, 1988.

After several momentous changes for the main characters, Dr. Donald Westphall (Ed Flanders) and his son Tommy (Chad Allen) are sitting in the office of the late Dr. Daniel Auschlander (Norman Lloyd), who died earlier in the episode. As they are watching the snow falling out of the office window, the scene cuts to an exterior shot of St. Eligius Hospital, the Boston hospital where Westphall and Auschlander worked.

Right then, the scene cuts to Tommy sitting on the floor of his apartment playing with a snow globe with Auschlander sitting behind him. At that moment, Westphall returns home from a day at work as a construction worker. He greets Auschlander as his father and then observes Tommy shaking his snow globe. Westphall then remarks that he doesn't understand autism, revealing that Tommy is autistic. He notes that Tommy doesn't talk but just stares into the snow globe in his own world. He then wonders what Tommy is thinking about. Westphall then calls Tommy and Auschlander into the kitchen for dinner. As they leave the room, Auschlander takes the snow globe from Tommy and places it on the family television set.

As the camera pans in onto the snow globe, we see inside of it and it has a tiny toy replica of St. Eligius with snow falling. It then reveals to the viewer that the entire six year saga of "St. Elsewhere", the people that worked there, the patients, the storyline and the hospital itself was all figments of Tommy Westphall's imagination.

Normally through the closing credits of "St. Elsewhere", the closing shot features a group of doctors performing an operation. For "The Last One", the producers did something different. The closing features a still shot of the show's production company, MTM Enterprises, against a black background. The company mascot, Mimsie The Cat, the real-life tabby cat of MTM's co-founder, the late legendary actress Mary Tyler Moore, is lying on her side and hooked up to an IV bag and an electrocaridogram, monitoring her heartbeat. MTM shows were known for its variants of Mimsie appearing in different costumes or using different sound effects that corresponded to the style of program produced by the company. Examples included her wearing a police cap for "Hill Street Blues", a Sherlock Holmes cap and a pipe that fell out of her mouth when she meowed for the credits of the detective comedy "Remington Steele", and for "St, Elsewhere", wearing a surgical mask, scrubs and cap. When the credits finished and the company logo appeared in full form for this episode, Mimsie's heart flatlines and she dies, marking the death of "St. Elsewhere". Coincidentally, Mimsie the Cat died not too long after this episode aired.