A Televisual Feast

A mostly straight comedy episode, with some great OR sequence at the beginning. Bruce Bilson does a fine job directing the episode, particularly since it goes through so many phases (Hawkeye planning to fake crazy, Hawkeye faking crazy, and Hawkeye trying to get out of faking crazy so well). The best moments, though, are still […]

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Call it a bridging episode… treading water… whatever. Ellenor goes on her date (big shock, she rejects the guy because of his looks and then has an impassioned conversation with Rebecca over her right to do so). Jimmy and Bobby prep the new murder case, which is mostly boring stuff Kelley should have fit in […]

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Here’s a strange one. Or not. It’s a concept episode. Or not. It starts like one, with a movie in a TV show, but then gets traditional real fast. The episode has a real halfway point, when guest star Ed Flanders disappears. It’s a more comedic episode–even Hawkeye’s closing address to the audience about the […]

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“The Practice” awesomeness continues in what might be the most emotionally gratifying, but still wonderful episode. Kelley probably achieves it through the juxtapose–the happiness and the intense sadness–and it doesn’t matter if it’s a (slightly) contrived move.
Big developments in this episode are Bobby getting emotionally affected, not to mention some great scenes with Jimmy. Kelley, […]

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Now I’m going to miss Spearchucker (I read he got 86ed for reality’s sake–no black surgeons in the Korean War). He’s a nice third wheel to Hawkeye and Trapper and, in an episode about indentured servitude, he’s somewhat necessary.
This episode comes real close. Real, real, real close. But then it goes soft at the end. […]

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The third episode of “The Practice” continues, with one exception, all the storylines from the far lesser pilot. I saw the teaser for the episode, saw the returning faces, and got worried. I’m not sure how it works–Kelley did a lackluster job the first time around with this set of ingredients, yet now he does […]

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Larry Gelbart is back as writer… with an episode very familiar to the pilot… specifically, a general coming to the 4077th and finding everyone nuts and Hawkeye a great doctor. The general having been called there by an irate Hot Lips and Frank. Is it a better pilot? No, not really… it’s a very weird […]

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