Week 5 Seminar: The Crossover Event

Several series, one event, and the one chance a franchise gets to settle every continuity at once.

24 March 2027

The technique#

A crossover event runs one story across several series. Done as a stunt, it is a ratings week. Done as engineering, it is the one moment a franchise can change every continuity at once, because every show is in the room.

The case: Crisis on Infinite Earths#

The pilot of The Flash (2014) shows a newspaper from the future, dated 2024: “Flash missing, vanishes in crisis”. The Arrowverse carried that promise for five years, then paid it off early. Crisis on Infinite Earths ran across five series in December 2019 and January 2020. It merged the separate Earths of Supergirl and Black Lightning into one, Earth-Prime. It also gave Arrow, which was ending, the death of Oliver Queen.

In the seminar#

This week is about evaluation, the skill the Continuity Briefing tests. The lecture sets out the options Crisis had, including the one it passed over: leaving the Earths apart. In the seminar you choose a side, and say who it was the better choice for. Briefings start next week.