St. Elsewhere (TV Series) Red, White, Black and Blue (1985) User Reviews

Child Abuse?

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 23 March 2022]

The First Lady is coming by on her way to Boston General, so all kinds of contingencies are put in place in case something happened to her. But the main case is Ehrlich reporting a little black boy who was climbing on some chairs and broke his ankle. Ehrlich suspects child abuse and sets all kinds of things in motion. The mother is devastated. Of course, we all know the race of the mother and child are at the center of an overreactiion.

First of two guest appearances for Betty White

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 8 March 2023]

Betty White is in prime form as a guest star in this episode. Her role as Captain Gloria Neal is interesting...it is not quite Sue Ann Nivens or Rose Nylund that she is playing. I think she was also appearing on Mama's Family at this time, as another type of character.

Betty was close friends with Ed Flanders, and Ed often persuaded executive producer Bruce Paltrow to hire his friends to do guest roles. Another one of Flanders' buddies was Jack Dodson (of The Andy Griffith Show) and he has a recurring role across several seasons.

Betty's character reappears the following season, and that episode must have been filmed during a week she had off from The Golden Girls which would have already been in production. In her second episode, a patient at St. Eligius (named Mary Richards!) will ask Betty if she is Sue Ann Nivens...an inside joke, since The Mary Tyler Moore Show was produced by MTM Productions, which also produced St. Elsewhere.