A Televisual Feast

This episode might be the first “M*A*S*H” of the first season where everything is calm. There’s no attempt to reintroduce characters and relationships, there’s no attempt to show heart, there’s no attempt to show comedy. It’s just a simple episode where Hawkeye and Trapper try to set Radar up, but can’t compete with the already […]

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I miss Spearchucker. Though I can just as easily say I’m going to miss Marcia Strassman’s Cutler, who’s time is limited as well.
This episode works on a very nice sitcom level… it’s got laughs (though some of them are mean-spirited, whether intentional or not–Nurse Edwina, turning twenty-eight, has never had a boyfriend or anything that […]

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I feel almost cheap saying it, but this episode, Dear Dad, is the finest “M*A*S*H” episode so far. I’m a little surprised Larry Gelbart wrote it even, because it’s such a great twenty-four minutes. Gelbart did a really good job on the pilot (and a lackluster one on his second episode), but there’s something wonderful […]

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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 […]

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The episode’s not terrible, but the resolution is bad. It’s such a lame ending–after a whole episode of things getting stolen, everything gets wiped clean by the thief’s motives… I remembered who did it, but I figured it would be his or her last episode… but apparently not.
It’s also really broad in the humor. Hawkeye […]

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Man, I am going to miss Spearchucker. I know he doesn’t have much to do, but there’s something about him, an extra weight on the Hawkeye and Trapper duo… it just really works.
Besides those concerns, this episode is a rather excellent sitcom. Henry gets promoted, Hawkeye and Trapper have to get him back. As usual, […]

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Blah. And here I thought I liked Robert Klane on “M*A*S*H.” Henry’s got someone after him and comedy ensues. While it does give McLean Stevenson more screen time than any other episode to date (by cutting Hot Lips out), the episode betrays the simplest “M*A*S*H” rule to date: no subplots. This episode doesn’t really have […]

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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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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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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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