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

I love "5 O'Clock Charlie". It has always been one of my favorite episodes.

"And now, here he is, for the sixth hit week! Five O'Clock Charlie, his airplane, and his astigmatism!"



Although I'm one of those fans who thinks starting with season four it all starts to go downhill so I savor all 72 episodes of the first three seasons.

 

Great episode!

 

"Hey Look Me Over" from season 11. That one should be in the top five worst episodes, indeed. The premise is that Hawkeye is shallow because he only pursues casual sex with skinny, attractive nurses, with the implication being that he would somehow be less shallow if he also pursued casual sex with the somewhat-overweight Kelleye. Kind of a questionable moral to that story. I get the sense maybe Alda felt bad because they'd never given Kelleye Nakahara much to do on the show, and so he decided to work out his guilt by writing an episode where he punished Hawkeye by proxy for "neglecting" her. Watching the episode though, one can see why Nakahara hadn't been given much to do before that, as her acting skills really were not up to the task of anything much more complicated than handing over a scalpel and saying "yes doctor."

 

You tell 'em, Ferret Face!

 

I'll probably start on season 2 on Sunday night but "The Incubator" is hilarious, easily one of my favourite episodes.

I believe so, couple of Emmys or something, which I'm sure did wonders for Alda's ego

I am probably in the minority of people who actually likes "Hey Look Me Over", one of the better season 11 episodes IMO. I like it when the nurses knock Hawkeye down a peg or two...

 

Private Char;es Lamb is another weak-ish episode from the early seasons, but speaking of the whole series, the worst episodes will have one or more of the following writers attached: Dennis Koenig, Karen Hall, Elias Davis & David Pollock and Dan Wilcox & Thad Mumford.

 

Pollock and Davis were probably the best of that lot IMO, they wrote some decent episodes as well as some so-so ones.

I think it's safe to say that Gelbart and Marks, Fritzell and Greenbaum and Levine and Issacs were the best outside writers on the show.

 

I watched the show religiously during its initial run (even though I was probably too young to understand a lot of it when it first came on the air). The show had such a long run that the reruns (which I also watched religiously) were burned into my brain already by the time of the farewell episode. I stopped watching the reruns some time in the middle 80s, and apart from randomly coming across one on TV I haven't watched the show since. I've never owned the show on VHS or DVD, so it's challenging for me to tell Season x from Season y, although the eras are of course clear enough.

Reading through this thread, one might conclude that Alan Alda robbed churches and cut off baby's heads ... or acted like this guy:

 

Or Alan Alda...

 

I don't like it because it's inconsistent. In the first few seasons, Hawkeye is considered attractive, charming, and is generally quite successful at getting dates. In the later seasons, he's often shown to be a shlump who is rejected much of the time and whose attempts at charm are often laughed at by the nurses. The latter portrayal is less sexist, but it stems from the nurses suddenly developing an anachronous 70s feminist perspective en masse.

 

The script for "Fallen Idol" is a worse crime against humanity than infant decapitation...

 

Definitely-I've always liked that episode a lot too...

Speaking of Season 2-That's one of the seasons I bought used, so I don't know the names of most episodes because it was missing the little booklet that came with each season they released.

I like it when *anybody* knocks Hawkeye down a peg or two... But yeah, it does seem like it's mostly the nurses.

 

Needless to say, one of my favorite episodes.

 

I agree with this sentiment. While the series certainly changed as Alan Alda gained more control, and there were more than a handful of weak episodes, I don't think we'd even be talking about this show more than 30 years after it ended if Alda weren't involved. I will agree with many, though, that seasons 3 through 6 or 7 were the best.

 

The latter day portrayal IS an anachronism. I wouldn't even say it's less sexist.

Of course the nurses slept with the doctors, then, now, and in the 1970s. Who else would they sleep with in that context? Each other? Not more than a few. Did they spend their whole tour bitching about where all the good men were at? It was either the doctors and other officers, enlisted, or locals. Who would you pick?

Women are sexual being with desires too, ya know. I guess the show runners felt they'd done it all with that sort of show and needed to show other things. Well, the earlier stuff was more realistic. The sexual relations in later episodes are far more dated today.

I was okay with them taking the direction they did with BJ. A lot of people weren't faithful, they were more or less nice about it, but yeah, some would try harder. That was fine. The portrayal of Potter I think comes across as naive today. Let's face it, a guy like Potter was only in Korea because he wanted to be. He could have stayed in Tokyo or somewhere with less action. Today I think you'd want to see that explored more realistically.

 

I think if the series were done today it would be influenced by ER. There would be more of a willingness to let characters come and go. Even the movie is bracketed by Hawkeye's arrival and departure, meaning that the MASH went on in his absence.

If the series had ended after Season 7, having Hawkeye leave at the end would have been a nice ending. Make it look like people coming and going to some extent. After 11 years, ending the war was the only fair thing for the viewers.

 

Well, Ray, a lot of people look up to you here. They admire you as an author and they kind of feel like they want to be like you. And, gee, when you write opinions like that, well, they kind of feel like you let 'em down. And if they can't depend on you well, they figure, well, maybe there's no point in depending on anything.

Pause. Okay, seriously... I've noted before that one of the things I dislike about that episode is how it employs the trope of having one character yell at another to create drama (or more accurately, melodrama). That was a common occurrence on latter-day MASH, and in this episode it's done on steroids, with no less than four scenes in which someone yells at someone else.

Another big thing I don't like about the episode is how it's premise is fundamentally unfair to Hawkeye, because it draws attention to an unrealistic situation on the show that we as the audience are supposed to be overlooking. As discussed earlier in the thread, at real MASH units there were about 10-12 doctors stationed, working across three shifts. In the interests of economy of both character and finances, the series simplified that into just four doctors who are (apparently) on-call 24/7. That's an unrealistic situation, and if we stop and think about it, it's a situation in which no character should ethically ever get drunk. Yet every single doctor on the show is depicted as getting drunk at one time or another. Realistically, if everyone is on-call all the time, then incidents like what happened to Hawkeye (being too drunk or hung over to operate) would have happened to every doctor at one time or another, probably on a fairly frequent basis. We as the audience are not supposed to think about that, and up until "Fallen Idol" the show avoids the topic altogether, simply making all the characters lucky enough to somehow never be drunk when they are called upon to operate. "Fallen Idol" violates that unwritten rule, and in doing so winds up castigating Hawkeye for doing something that every doctor would have wound up doing if the logic of this episode were applied consistently across the entire series.

 

Let me tell you what you can do with your Seattle naivete

I haven't seen the episode in probably 30 years, so I'll try to poke around see if I can view it somewhere (30 second effort on YouTube didn't even bring up a clip of the climactic scene).

 

I was able to take a look at the episode. I must have watched it a great number of times back in the day, because I remembered parts of it verbatim.

I certainly won't argue the point of the logical inconsistency in the surgeons being on call 24/7, yet all drinking to excess a number of times. But that's a flaw inherent in the entire series, not just in this particular episode (although, yes, it is obviously more important here). I remember thinking the very same thing when I watched the episode the first time (when I was 13 years old). Of course Radar was also mailing himself home a jeep once upon a time, so there's another inconsistency we have to ignore (or be derailed by).

So putting that aside, I find the episode just as enjoyable as I found it 40 years ago. It has laughs, it has drama, and it marks an important point in the evolution of two of the characters (while also reinforcing the character traits of BJ and Charles). As far as the confrontational scenes go, well, this is a sitcom and not Shakespearean Theater. Within the confines that the Radar character was already boxed in to, I find those moments hit the spot quite nicely. I am not much of a fan of where the Radar character eventually went to (and watching the "Walter" pilot for the first time in this thread got me closer to out and out hating the "mature" character), but I like where he went in this episode. As far as the yelling goes - it's appropriate for the situation (and played for comedy in the case of Father Mulcahy). No complaints from me there.

I can see that an episode starring Alan Alda, written by Alan Alda, and directed by Alan Alda would get met with derision by the International AA Fan Club that this thread appears to be. But I still find this a funny and moving episode, and I 'd wager that a good chunk of the audience felt the same, which is part of why people were so connected to this show by the time its run ended. Yes, popular acclaim doesn't have to equal "good", but I feel it does in this case.

 

Yes, but the problem is that in this episode they draw attention to the flaw, rather than ignoring it.

If you're going to read a Superman comic, one of the things you have to accept going in is that Clark Kent's glasses work as a disguise. You just have to suspend your disbelief and accept it, and not think about it any more. And if you're writing a Superman story, you need to ignore the glasses. Drawing attention to the silliness of the glasses disguise undermines the premise and distracts the reader, while making an attempt to explain how the disguise works is impossible to do credibly and invariably falls flat. The writer and reader need to just ignore it and proceed with the story.

In like manner, there's no credible way to explain the fact that the surgeons are on call 24/7 and often drink to excess, yet somehow this never affects their performance nor is an issue. It's not realistic, and we just need to accept that and not think about it. That's what the writers did for five seasons with no problem, and it worked fine. Alda liked to break the unwritten rules in his writing, but in this case there was a very good reason for that unwritten rule, and his drawing attention to that inconsistency opens a Pandora's box that leads the viewer to think about how unethical it is for any of these guys to be drinking ever, under the premise set up by the series. Hawkeye's real error in the plot is not getting drunk, it's having the bad luck to inadvertently get drunk at the wrong time, something that could have happened to anyone. The whole premise of the episode hinges on everyone scorning Hawkeye for doing something they all (except Mulcahy) did too. I remember watching it (at age 11) and feeling Hawkeye was being treated quite unfairly under the circumstances. That took me right out of the story.

I suspect the actors liked the big dramatic yelling scenes because they gave them an opportunity to chew the scenery and really show off. I find them overdone and lacking in subtlety. Confrontation in the real world is generally more subtle than one person screaming at another. You can probably count on one hand the total amount of times one character yells at another in the first three years of the series, yet there is no shortage of drama there. Whereas in the final years, it seems like there is at least one big yelling scene every episode. Hawkeye yelling at Radar and vice versa were I guess necessary to the plot, but the other scenes were not. I think the scene where Potter confronts Hawkeye would have been far more effective if played more subtly, with Potter expressing stern disapproval or shaming Hawkeye rather than bellowing at him. As to Mulcahy and Houliahan, it seems obvious their gratuitous confrontation scenes were added solely to give Swit and Christopher something to do that week, since there was no B plot in this episode.

Ah well, I don't find it funny, and the unfairness in how Hawkeye is treated prevents it from being moving to me. Ultimately what it comes down to is that MASH was essentially two different series. I'm a huge fan of the first one (seasons 1-5) and at best a casual fan of the second (seasons 6 onward). "Fallen Idol" was really a turning point in the switch from series one to series two, and I suppose part of the reason I dislike it so much is that it is the beginning of the end of the series I loved.

 

I think it bothered me a lot less than it bothered you because I was already aware of it. There were a lot of times in the first 5 seasons when I would say to the TV "What if the wounded come NOW?" And doesn't BJ get smashed, do some vomiting mid-doctoring, and stumble out of a jeep in his very first episode? (Working from memory here, don't crucify me. )

I'd have to rewatch more episodes to take a point of view regarding an abundance of yelling. I can only speak for the one I just watched, where it all made sense to me.

Regarding the series as a whole, I definitely prefer the middle seasons to first few. I thought the firs two major cast changes were major upgrades. Perhaps (probably?) I like the middle seasons for many of the very same reasons that you don't. I doubt I could have stayed engaged with 11 seasons of frat boy antics.

 

Hey, Ray and Jason- save the "Fallen Idol" talk for when we get to season 6!

Fear not- when I put up the new season it always includes an episode guide. I'll put up season 2 later tonight.

M*A*S*H reminds me more of House than ER simply because of the characters- are we sure Benjamin Franklin Pierce and Gregory House aren't related?

 

At the risk of getting my wrist slapped, I'm with you. I remember discussing this years ago with friends. Hawkeye was something of a hero but we all thought he wasn't the kind of person you'd want as a friend because of his propensity to behave like a dick at times. I also thought it was one of the better things they did with Radar in those post series 3 shows because he was becoming far too cute. When he left, I was glad at first, but watching the reruns made me realise how integral he was to the show earlier and that the later writers had messed up (though, to be fair, he's on this trajectory earlier).

Having said that, I, too, prefer series 1 - 5. After 8, there are times I find it painful to watch: too much sentiment; too much shouting; too many bad puns. The saving grace - for me - of the later series is Winchester and the fact he's allowed to step FURTHER away from Frank's shadow and have a relationship with Hawkeye and BJ and act like a human being. In these series, serious but witty comment about the war, the misuse of authority and life at the front is too often replaced with gross sentimentality. The show's big problem, of course, is that it went on too long and the later series are served with some pretty poor writers - to be honest, I find Alda's own scripts generally better than the bulk of those in 8 to the finish.

Of course, I'm saying this like it isn't one of my favourite TV shows of all time and I still don't get the urge to wear a stetson and bathrobe to dinner... and, Jesus,why doesn't Alda make another film with Woody Allen?!

 

I draw the line in an unusual place, I think M*A*S*H becomes another show after season 6, Winchester's first year....the writing and many of the performers lose their edge and become very mannered...especially Alda, Morgan and Swit.

While season 7 is pretty decent, it's too up and down and the seeds of the steep decline to come are evident. The "Jump The Shark" ep for me is "Peace On Us", a premise that should be a classic (Hawkeye gets into the peace talks), but is just so pedestrian and has the sappiest ending you could imagine.

While there are several fine eps over the last four seasons, they are mostly dramatic...the show just forgot how to do funny...which becomes more evident when they really try. Winchester is the only character who really flourishes in this final era....it''s just a shame Gelbart never got to write for him.

 

I agree with many of the points raised in the two posts above, but I will try to restrain myself from discussing them further out of respect for the season-by-season structure that I have already repeatedly violated. Maybe it's time to delve into those early episodes again.