A Televisual Feast

Alan Alda’s first episode as writer is an odd episode. It follows the passage of Hawkeye’s longjohns from person to person, getting every cast member in while telling a very simple (no subplots here) story.

The episode’s greatest strength is in the individual vingettes. They allow for humor, but also some new situations for the characters (Radar, for instance, being a ladies man). Alda oddly spends most of the significant time with Frank and Hot Lips, as in, the only actual character development. Frank’s feeding Hot Lips cheese his wife sent him and they get into an argument only the longjohns can save. It isn’t much, character development-wise, but it’s more than the rest of the episode, which essentially features everyone ticked off.

It’s a solid, though not revolutionary, debut from Alda.

3.5