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It can be somewhat common among spinoff series or when cross promotion is desired, for characters from one series to appear in episodes of another series. This has most recently been seen in some of the Law and Order episodes, and in various episodes of the NCIS and CSI family of series.

As noted in some of the comments in this question, there have been a few cases of spinoff series appearing on other networks. I'm interested in finding out if there have been instances of character crossover in currently running episodes on competing networks? (Just as an example, members of the cast of Bones (Fox) appearing on CSI (CBS).)

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  • It can get even more confusing if one lives outside of the US. E.g. here in Canada, two closely related American shows could be bought by two different networks. When it happens in the US, the networks have already agreed to it and planned it; when it happens here, it's by accident, and it's not obvious that the networks even want to advertise it as a crossover. And worse, two related episodes could be aired in the wrong order.
    – Ray Butterworth
    Dec 17, 2019 at 15:19

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Wikipedia has some information about this.

For instance, Detective John Munch from Homicide: Life on the Street (NBC) appeared in an episode of The X Files (FOX).

It's rare, but it happens.

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  • Also Arrested Development, also The Wire. There was a time when it became a game to spot John Munch.
    – wbogacz
    Feb 12, 2014 at 21:22
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I hate to send you to a website, but there is a master list of crossover appearances maintained at Poobala. The site is physically elderly, to the extent that it uses frames, and it last had a major update in January 2012, but it is quite comprehensive. There are so many crossovers listed that it would be futility to copy them all over here. The aforementioned Munch appearances are all part of a massive crossover grouping which is all the dream of the autistic child at the end of St. Elsewhere.

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Not sure if OP meant that Bones interlinked characters/episodes with the tv show Crossing Jordan, I wasn't aware of crossovers with CSI but maybe I missed them.

Not sure if this counts but Joss Whedon's two shows Buffy and Angel were written in the same universe however at a later time Angel was moved to another television network. This is why there stopped being characters obviously inter-written between the shows unless they'd stopped being regular characters on their main show. There is one instance where they got around this Angel season 5 episode 20 where they indicate that Buffy is in the area and a blond girl is seen leaving the club, it's indicated that this is Buffy however Sarah Michelle Gellar was no longer interested in playing the character. All the links of crossovers are listed here http://buffy.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Buffy_The_Vampire_Slayer_and_Angel_crossover_episodes.

Can't think of any others immediately but i'll include them as I think of them.

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I'm interested in finding out if there have been instances of character crossover in currently running episodes on competing networks?

If you count streaming services are competing for networks too then I will count Crisis on Infinite Earths

In this crossover we have, CW network running shows;

Supergirl (Originally CBS in seaosn 1)

The Flash

Batwoman

Arrow

Legends of Tomorrow

Black Lightning ( was not part of Arrowverse franchise before)

Freedom Fighters: The Ray (CW Seed)

Canceled or long over old franchises from CW

Smallville

Canceled or long over old franchises, not from CW:

Constantine (TV series)- NBC orginally (but later merged with arrowverse)

The Flash (1990 TV series) - CBS

Birds of Prey (TV series) - The WB

Tim Burton's Batman Movies

Batman (TV series) - ABC

Superman Returns

Still running shows from non-CW streaming services:

Titans - DC Universe

Lucifer - Netflix (originally fox)

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  • Where does Gotham fit into this multi-universe mess?
    – user18935
    Dec 17, 2019 at 6:33
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    @Jeeped nowhere
    – Ankit Sharma ♦
    Dec 17, 2019 at 6:34
  • I'm thankful for response but confused. Did you mean to say that Gotham has no place in any universe or some other opinion?
    – user18935
    Dec 19, 2019 at 4:22
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    @Jeeped I believe Ankit is saying that Gotham does not crossover with any of the other DC series.
    – Raj
    Dec 19, 2019 at 20:50
  • Batman (1966) crossed over with Green Hornet (1966) in the Batman episodes "A Piece of the Action" and "Batman's Satisfaction".
    – Lady Aleena
    Jun 27, 2020 at 11:03

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