A Televisual Feast

The pilot episode of “M*A*S*H” raises a lot of questions: is it visible how popular it’s going to become, is it good from the start, et cetera, et cetera–another question being, I suppose, how many times have I seen this episode? I’ve probably only seen the pilot twice and not particularly recently (ten or more years). It’s a good pilot–I’m going to go out on a limb and say, for “M*A*S*H,” lots of episodes are going to score high–given it’s a movie adaptation.

Going in to the episode when I did originally, off a general knowledge of the series and a specific one of the film, it always struck me how much they brought over from the film. Ugly John, Spearchucker, Dish. Ho John too.

Anyway, as a pilot, it sets up Hawkeye and Trapper as loveable cads (they might drink and carouse, but they’re really good doctors and they are trying to help Ho John). Frank’s dispecable, Hot Lips has a break in the facade (for a moment)… It’s not a flawless half hour of television (the visualized memory sequence is odd), but it’s a flawless pilot.

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