6. St. Elsewhere
Episode:"The Last One" Finale episodes are often laden with gimmicks, as producers feel safe in pulling out all the stops as a reward to loyal viewers, but they don't get more gimmicky or ridiculous than the way the producers of 80's medical drama St. Elsewhere opted to close the book on their series. In the final minutes of the last episode, it is revealed that the six years worth of stories at St. Eligius Hospital are merely the figments in the imagination of an autistic child, Tommy Westphall, who is seen staring intently at a snowglobe that contains a miniature version of the hospital inside it. More interesting are the unseen repercussions that this ending produces, with Elsewhere characters Dr. Roxanne Turner and Dr. Victor Erlich also appearing on Homicide:Life on the Street. Is that series also a fiction of Tommy's imagination? For further info on this topic you can Google "Tommy Westphall Hypothesis", which posits that up to 90% of American television is all in little Tommy's head.