M*A*S*H: Ceasefire

M*A*S*H: Ceasefire
CBS
March 18, 1973
Dramedy
DVD
B

Laurence Marks and Larry Gelbart co-wrote the script, based on a story by Robert Klane.  As with The Bob Newhart Show, its a penultimate episode that feels like it should be a season-closer.  Not only because the war seems to be over, but because there's a general wrapping up characters and their inter-relationships.  And, yes, there's irony to none of them knowing how much longer the war, and even more so the series, would continue.

Patrick Adiarte (Ho-Jon, now more fluent in English), Odessa Cleveland (Lt. Bayliss), Bonnie Jones (Lt. Bannerman), Lynnette Mettey (Lt. Griffin), Marcia Strassman (Nurse Cutler), and Herb Voland (Gen. Clayton) all return.  This is the 100th program I've awarded a B.

M*A*S*H: Love Story

M*A*S*H: Love Story
CBS
January 7, 1973
Dramedy
DVD
C+

In this Laurence Marks story, there's not really all that much "love."  Radar receives a "Dear John" 45 RPM record and then has a crush on an intellectual woman, Lt. Anderson.  Hawkeye shows him how to fake that sort of intelligence.  No, the lesson does not turn out to be that Radar should just be himself, as it would be on The Bob Newhart Show or of course The Brady Bunch.  Instead, the lesson is don't try to interfere with romance, as Hot Lips does on the basis that Anderson is an officer and Radar an enlisted man, because you will be cock-blocked until you give in.  I will admit that I was mildly amused when she finds Hawkeye and Trapper in her bed.

Jerry Harper, who plays the Sergeant, would later be Phillips.  Barbara Brownell (Jones) makes her second and last appearance on the show but would soon be on Bob Newhart.

The Brady Bunch: The Big Bet

The Brady Bunch: The Big Bet
ABC
January 28, 1972
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Not long after Bobby was hanging from the swingset to make himself taller, he's now, in an Elroy Schwartz story, hanging from there as part of his training to do at least half as many chin-ups as Greg can.  When Bobby wins the bet, Greg has to do everything that Bobby says, including take him to the drive-in on a date with Rachel (Hope Sherwood).  Meanwhile, Mike and Carol have a bet about whether she can guess who his high school crush "Bobo" was when they go to his reunion (presumably 20th, since Mike was not yet 40 in the first season, and Greg is 16 this season).  Mike's own high school nickname was "Hot Lips."

That Girl: Don and Sandi and Harry and Snoopy

Meanwhile on CBS....

That Girl: Don and Sandi and Harry and Snoopy
ABC
October 2, 1970
Sitcom
DVD
B

This is Peggy Elliott's last TG episode and one of her better ones.  Yes, I wish that Cloris Leachman,  as Donald's widowed sister Sandi, had more to do but I like how it's unclear whether her boyfriend is a scumbag or not until almost the end.  (Ann is the "Snoopy" of the title.)

Dave Ketchum makes his third and last TG appearance, as the Man in Restaurant, with an in-joke as Ann is talking about a production of Twelve Angry Men.  Bob Ross does his second of six, as the Waiter.  And it's Earl Bellamy's first directing credit in my collection; he'd do The Brady Bunch a couple years later.