M*A*S*H- a season by season discussion!

Hot Lips was always intelligent and capable, that wasn't the issue. I liked her better when she was with Frank.

I don't necessarily fault the show for ending the Frank-Hot Lips thing at some point. Frank was never going to leave his wife for her. How else was it going to end? At some point one or the other would end their tour and that would be the end of it.

The Penobscot thing made no sense. In a way that's okay, people do things that make no sense. Maybe Penobscot was just an excuse to get her out of her cycle with Frank and the generals. But she apparently didn't want kids, and they weren't going to live together any time soon, why get married? Any Lt. Col. could do better than her, to be blunt. Like Trapper said, too many miles on her. She made her choices earlier in life, didn't want kids, wasn't willing to compromise on her job when she got married. That was going to be very limiting to any relationship. Frank was probably the best relationship she ever had or ever would have.

 

I'm curious if they had any idea Linville was leaving when the Margaret's marriage plotline was conceived. It would have been fascinating to see the ramifications to both of them of Frank going home while they were still a couple...

 

"Emotionally exhausted and morally bankrupt."

I would be inclined to agree...hell, we've pretty much established it just based on our discussions of the show here!

"I'll just be a smile on yer face yer wife won't understand..."

IMO Margaret's marriage only made sense in so far as how 'liberated' she became once her marriage went to hell in a handbasket...and, yeah, I'd bet Loretta Swit was calling the shots there as well.

Probably. I believe Larry Linville made it clear before they started work on season five that it would be his last.

 

I've been meaning to post in this thread but things have just been a little hectic. M*A*S*H is probably my favorite TV show. I'll go back to some of the previous seasons when I get a chance, but I just wanted to mention that today is the 35th anniversary (Feb. 28, 1983) of the finale, Goodbye, Farewell & Amen. I've been running through my dvd sets, typically watching one episode each night, but last night I noticed that I just had three regular season 11 episodes left, so I watched them all and will cue up the finale tonight.

 

I doubt that was the case, because if they'd known he was leaving they almost certainly would have given him a send-off episode like they did for Henry and Radar. Certainly it would have been funnier to see Frank go insane than to hear about it happening off-camera. The fact that they did not do a send-off suggests that Linville made the decision after season five had already wrapped. This theory is also supported by the fact that some of the season six episodes appear to have been written for Frank and then rewritten to feature Charles instead. I don't think Margaret's marriage was conceived because they knew Linville was leaving. Rather, I think it's more likely that storyline (and the way it resulted in Frank being written into even more of a corner) was probably one of the factors in his decision to leave.

 

My guess is that they knew, but left it open at the end of the season, hoping Larry would change his mind...

 

His leaving definitely wouldn't have been a complete surprise... they knew his contract was coming to an end after season five, and clearly he hadn't signed a new one by season's end. And he'd probably talked with somebody over the course of the season (either castmates or producers) about his uncertainty regarding coming back. But it also seems clear he hadn't made a definite decision by season's end, and there must of been some abruptness to his decision since they (likely) had new episodes written that featured him. It's interesting that he apparently was not willing to come back for a one-shot goodbye episode either (since I can't imagine they didn't try to get him to at least do that at the start of season seven). Anyway, my main point is that I do not think any of the Frank plotlines in season six (particularly Margaret's marriage) were written with the thought that was going to be his last season.

 

I dunno, I was always under the impression that Linville made it clear at the onset of season 5 that it would be his last, no contract renewal, nothing. The season 6 episodes we suspect were written with Frank in mind instead of Winchester, well, who knows for sure when those were written. I'm becoming ever more convinced that over the years they dusted off some older unused scripts and used them later in the series.

 

Again, I can't imagine they wouldn't have given him a farewell episode if they'd been certain he was leaving at the end of season five. Why wouldn't they? As I said, it would be far funnier to see him crack up than to hear about it happening off camera.

I doubt they had many (any?) unused scripts laying around. Ken Levine talks about how they had to scramble to throw together an extra script at the end of season seven when it was decided to delay the Goodbye Radar episode until the following year.

 

I don't think it would have been funny at all. Like I say, by the time season 5 rolls around it's a lot easier to feel sorry for Frank than to laugh at him. I must admit, I kinda want to cringe seeing Hawkeye, BJ and Potter so gleeful about Frank's departure in "Fade Out/Fade In" knowing that they were at least partly responsible for Frank's crackup in the first place, given the way they treated him. Yeah, Frank did deserve some of that treatment but IMO Pierce, Hunnicut, Houlihan and Potter went a bit overboard with their bullying. Not that it would have happened, of course, but if there's one time when it would have been nice to see Hawkeye, at least, step up and take some responsibility for his actions it would have been over their treatment of Frank.

One wonders how Frank Burns would have reacted to the almost-overnight failure of Margaret's marriage...

 

I always thought the one where Winchester decides to take advantage the locals after the Army changes the color of the money/scrip was originally conceived as a Frank episode.

 

That's one of the more 'obvious' episodes, if that was the case. When I was watching some of the season 4 episodes I know there was one -damned if I can remember which now- where I was thinking, "This could have easily been Trapper and Henry instead of Potter and BJ" as well. Now Ken Levine did say they didn't use "old" scripts but I really do have to wonder. It might also explain -maybe- why some of us have noticed that such-and-such episode in the later seasons has the "feel" of one from the earlier years. I believe I cited "The Moon Is Blue" as an example of that (a season 11 episode that seemed more like a season 7 or 8 ep)

 

Well, regardless of whether you think it would have been funny, the show's writers clearly did, or they wouldn't have written the offscreen scene describing him going nuts. I do agree there were times when I almost felt sorry for Frank during season five, but I still was able to laugh at him too. At any rate, my main point was that they certainly would have written some sort of farewell episode for him if they'd known he was leaving at the end of season five. I can't think of any plausible reason why they would not have done that. So it seems pretty clear they did not know. They probably knew there was a possibility, but he clearly did not give them a definite decision until after the season was over.

 

Perhaps, but it's just as likely that they didn't have a firm grip on the character yet and were using him in typical Frank-like plotlines...

 

Hey, there's a second part to that MASH oral history on The Hollywood Reporter site. More discussion of the change in Margaret's character from Alda:
Alda: One of the things I liked, with Loretta's prodding, was every time I had a chance to write for her character, we'd get away from the Hot Lips angle and find out more about who Margaret was. She became more of a real person.

Of course, what he should say is "she became more of a different person."

One factoid I did not know is that a big chuck of the later-seasons writing staff (John Rappaport, Dan Wilcox, Thad Mumford and Dennis Koenig) were hired directly from the atrocious failed Joe Namath comedy The Waverly Wonders, shortly after that show was cancelled. That explains a lot about the sitcom-ish feel of some of the later MASH episodes and the diminished quality of the comedy on the show.

 

Well, I can understand Linville's reluctance to actually state "No, I am definitely leaving" with finality. M*A*S*H would have been a hard show to walk away from- even Stevenson, Rogers and Burghoff would all likely agree with that. Even if Linville did leave everybody hanging, when the word did finally come down they handled it as best they could, I suppose.

True. One of things like "Should Charles and Margaret hook up or not?"...I reckon it took the writers a while in season 6 to finally find a groove for Winchester. Fortunately they'd sorted it out by the end of the season.

I need to read those oral histories.

They mention that in the FAQ book. In the early days of M*A*S*H, of course, they inherited quite a few writers from Hogan's Heroes (Laurence Marks, Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum etc).

 

One fact that I liked from the early days of M*A*S*H was that thirteen of the episodes were directed by Jackie Cooper. He had a lot of sitcom experience with his 50s show THE PEOPLES CHOICE and the later HENNESEY series. HENNESEY was probably the closest thematic pre-cursor to M*A*S*H that there'd ever be. The series was set on a naval base with "Chick" Hennesey as a base doctor, and it provided mostly comedy with some dramatic episodes sprinkled in. I think Cooper's experience with that series greatly aided his abilities in directing M*A*S*H.

HENNESEY the series seems to be hung up in some sort of rights-hell. There are a few old 16mm prints, generations down, that have seen better days on YouTube. Here's an episode with Charles Bronson:

 

Cooper only directed thirteen episodes because he famously did not get on with Alan Alda.

 

^^
I did not know that.

 

Supposedly Jamie Farr and Alan Alda weren't exactly the best of buddies either. Gary Burghoff could be a bit prickly at times as well, not just before he left the series. In fact, from the impression I got reading in the FAQ book, the only member of the main cast who was a consistently nice, cooperative guy on set was Wayne Rogers. I was surprised when I read that.

 

Wasn't he somewhat prickly on City of Angels and House Calls? Probably with good reason in the former case.

 

I think most actors are probably prima donnas. Egos.

 

Linville did a pilot for the NBC Fall TV 1977 season, or immediately after he left M*A*S*H. It did not sell, but did air on August 25, 1977. It was called Calling Dr. Storm, M.D. Linville played the title character, apparently a dedicated surgeon in this one. This seems to have been a soap opera parody along the lines of Soap, which debuted the same year on ABC. I'm guessing Linville played the character about the same way he played Burns in The Novocaine Mutiny. Not such a bad idea, really. Already sounds better than any of Mac Stevenson's efforts. Also guessing the title redundancy was intentional! Jim Burrows directed this, as he did for so many TV pilots in addition to his other work. Frank Konigsberg was the producer. This was one of his first jobs, and he would go on to do numerous TV movies until he died in 2016.

It couldn't have been very long after M*A*S*H wrapped that Linville signed on for that pilot. So the producers likely knew fairly soon after the season, if not before. Of course, one of the problems was they already had the season ender dedicated to Hot Lips' marriage. That usually wasn't an issue for M*A*S*H. I don't think it would have helped to cram Frank's leaving into that plot. So they may have pushed writing out Linville to the beginning of Season 6 anyway.

 

I just realized that there is one quick flashback to an event from before the series starts...and it occurs in the pilot!

 

I always thought it interesting that both Jackie Cooper and Gene Reynolds were child stars at MGM.