TV Crossovers Can Be Oddly Groovy

I used to enjoy it when two TV shows would have a crossover episode (or a couple of them). I don't so much mean when one show is a spinoff and cast members from the old show come by, or when two shows in the same franchise cross over (like two of the Law & Orders or CSIs), because that's too easy. I'm talking about two shows, apparently separate of each other, and the characters meet up somehow.

I recall Law & Order and Homicide: Life on the Street did that at least once, because I remember Benjamin Bratt's character giving Andre Braugher a lot of crap about being too out of control. Nowadays, I think Bratt's character was probably right, but I'm sure back then, I thought Detective Frank Pemberton was awesome. Actually, I still think that, on the occasions I remember how much I used to enjoy the show Homicide*.

CBS did it a couple of times with their Saturday lineup, having Martial Law crossover with both Walker, Texas Ranger** and Early Edition. Man, I loved Early Edition. Come on, guy gets tomorrow's paper today and uses it to save lives, and resists friend's urging to use for personal gain. I did fall out of the pattern of watching it in later seasons, when I think they started to focus on how and why he was getting the paper. They might have been better off just letting that go, since I'm sure their answer couldn't match what fans came up with in their minds (and I don't recall what the whole deal was). The Walker/Martial Law episodes worked because they're both cops, and they both like to kick people, and the Martial Law/Early Edition set-up sort of worked since you've got a guy claiming bad things are going to happen, and he seems like he wants to help, but he won't tell you how he knows, so do we trust him? conflict. Hmm, maybe that crossover was an attempt to get more face-kicking into Early Edition. Gary Hobson wasn't a very violent guy, as I recall.

USA likes to tease at this sometimes, with the commercials where Monk and Johnny Smith meet at a detectives convention, or Johnny and Shawn from Psych are comparing who has it easier in a diner. I'm not sure how well an actual meeting/collaboration between the casts of some of the shows would work. Since they're all detectives, it might be hard to keep them from getting in each other's way. Ooh, maybe a Burn Notice/Dead Zone crossover! I'm sure Michael Westin would appreciate having a psychic helping him. Actually, I'm just going to stop now, before you lose respect for me. What's that? It's too late? Damn.

*That's probably not as often as I ought to.

** Thanks to Wikipedia, I just found out JMS was a producer on Walker until he left to work on Babylon 5. The odd things the Internet learns ya.