A Televisual Feast

It’s hard to explain what’s wrong with this episode, but it has a lot to do with lack of content. Larry Gelbart can waste time with the best of them–whether it’s a long Frank and Hot Lips off to the supply tent (or not) sequence, with full narration from Hawkeye, or a transition from Henry’s to the Swamp with similar narration… he just doesn’t pace the episode right.

The premise is simple. Hawkeye and Trapper steal Frank’s blood to give to a North Korean (because Frank wouldn’t volunteer) and then they think Frank’s got hepitistis and can’t tell him why they think he does. So they sneak around with ruses and schemes to find out.

While Gelbart opens very politically–Frank refuses the POW medical attention–he gets lost in a comedic quest and a poor one. Messing up Frank and Hot Lips going to the supply tent is hardly worth four minutes, much less the five or six it probably takes, not to mention the listlessness once the story’s no longer about the patient.

The lack of subplots–well, actually, there is a Hawkeye subplot about him and Dish, but it’s a scene and it’s an intro from a commercial break–really hits this episode bad. Gelbart just doesn’t have enough to do to keep them busy.

(In fact, it’s so uninteresting, I couldn’t even get upset about it being Spearchucker’s last episode).

2.5