Crossover November: Should ‘Scandal’ season 5, ‘How to Get Away with Murder’ take the plunge?

Shonda Rhimes has done crossovers before, so it only makes sense to spend a minute or two in this Crossover November series talking about a potential pairing of two of the shows under her Shondaland banner: “Scandal” and “How to Get Away with Murder.” This is something that we’ve heard some cast members discuss in the past, and if ABC really wanted to get some ratings, having Olivia Pope trying to handle a scandal of Annalise Keating’s could be a heck of a lot of fun.

With that said, would such an event actually work both realistically and logically? Let’s put on our detective cap and start to analyze.

The case for a crossover – Ratings is a great reason to start, since this is the sort of event you could probably get people to watch live. Also, it wouldn’t be too terrible of an inconvenience as far as crossovers go. The shows both film in Los Angeles, are on the same network, and even on the same night.

While we don’t see the logic of having “How to Get Away with Murder” characters necessarily heading to Washington unless Olivia Pope / someone else needs a really intense lawyer, it would be interesting seeing how Kerry Washington’s character could try to handle a public problem for Annalise Keating, or how someone like Huck or Quinn could help her students dispose of a dead body, hide evidence, or do whatever else they need to do in order to cover up something they’ve done wrong.

Now, if you are start to throw people like Fitz or Mellie into the mix, you start to lose us a little.

The case against it – It’s a lot of creative people to throw together. Rhimes isn’t the showrunner of “How to Get Away with Murder,” so she and Pete Nowalk would have to get together with the writers to figure all of this out. It’s a lot of work in a short frame of time, especially when these shows have so much else going on. The fact that these are very different characters makes this a little different than the old “Private Practice” – “Grey’s Anatomy” crossovers that happened here and there.

With “How to Get Away with Murder” especially, the big question is whether or not the show really wants to take a break from some of their typical storytelling for a crossover. They only make 15 episodes a season, and that is not a lot of time when you’ve got a huge, serialized story.

Do you think that these shows should try a crossover on for size? Let us know in the comments or the poll below! Also, click here to see other entries in our series, or sign up here to get some other TV news on everything we cover, sent right to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: ABC.)