Buffy The Vampire Slayer

You know it’s a sweeps month when all of the sudden TV characters start taking road trips to other shows. Last week, Gil Grissom and Jack Malone spent some quality time together on CSI and Without a Trace. As I watched the two leading men mark their territory, I started thinking about my favorite crossover episodes.

Ally McBeal and The Practice (April 1998): During its heyday, I had something of a love/hate relationship with Ally McBeal (kind of how I am about Grey’s Anatomy these days). I didn’t love the show but I couldn’t stop watching. But when Eugene, Ellenor, Bobby and Rebecca visited the law firm of Cage & Fish I was in heaven. One of my all time favorite moments came when Helen Gamble said to Ally, "Maybe you should eat a cookie." And Ally responded, "Maybe we should share it." It’s fairly rare that a crossover episode can actually crossover network borders, but David Kelley, who was an executive producer on both shows, was able to pull it off .

Homicide and Law & Order (February 1996): First of all, Homicide (H:LOTS to those of use who love the series) remains one of my all time favorite TV shows and each of the three times it crossed over with Law & Order, the stunt gave my beloved Homicide some much needed exposure. These two episodes "Charm City" and "For God and Country" are my favorite of the crossovers for two reasons – it continued Richard Belzer’s penchant for playing Detective John Munch on multiple series (including shows as varied as Arrested Development and The X-Files) and it was in this Homicide episode that Munch discovers that his ex-wife Gwen also had a relationship with Law & Order’s Lenny Briscoe. Briscoe and Munch could have easily had their own spin-off series.

Buffy and Angel (May 2003): Because the characters lived in the same wonderful universe that Joss Whedon created and shared the same glorious mythology, the characters from these shows would often visit each other. But my favorite moment came in the penultimate episode of Buffy entitled "End of Days," Buffy and Angel have a moving conversation about their past and their future and Buffy tells Angel "I’m like cookie dough. I’m not done baking." It was a moment that I really think put some closure on their relationship and allowed viewers a chance to see this ill-fated couple together one last time.

So all this talk about crossover episodes got me thinking and I have some ideas for future crossover episodes that I would like to see:

Howimetyourmother_s2_240 How I Met Your Mother and The Office: We already know Lily’s family is a little quirky and in this crossover episode we learn that Dwight is Lily’s cousin. Dwight calls Lily when his boss Michael gets into legal trouble and needs Marshall to defend him. Plus Barney has to fend off a very aggressive Kelly.

Grey’s Anatomy and ER: McDreamy, McSteamy and McStamos together at last! In this crossover episode, McStamos travels to Seattle to convince Doug and Carol (remember they live in Seattle) to come back to Chicago just in time for the ER series finale. Meanwhile, Tony doesn’t understand while all the women want to make out with him in the elevator.

Cane and Brothers & Sisters: Tommy Walker meets up with Frank Duque at a rum/wine convention. Together they lament being passed over as leader of the family business and Tommy gives Frank tips on how to spice up his drama. Nora and Amalia decide to co-author a book on mothering techniques.

What are your favorite crossover episodes? What shows do you think would make for excellent crossovers? Talk about it below.