M*A*S*H: The Chosen People

M*A*S*H: The Chosen People
CBS
January 26, 1974
Dramedy
DVD
B-

Laurence Marks, Sheldon Keller, and Larry Gelbart wrote the teleplay based on a story by Gerry Renert and Jeff Wilhelm.  This may partially explain why the first part of the episode has some jokes that are clinkers and then things improve.  It helps to have Pat Morita back as Capt. Sam Pak, but I also like how virginal Radar deals with being named the father of a Korean baby.  (He and the mother met in September, presumably of 1950).

Jerry Fujikawa (this time as the Korean Father), Jeff Maxwell (Straminsky), Bobbie Mitchell (Lyons),  and Kellye Nakahara (Yamato) return.

M*A*S*H: Officers Only

M*A*S*H: Officers Only
CBS
December 22, 1973
Dramedy
DVD
B-

Klinger briefly fakes a pregnancy and Hawkeye and Trapper figure out a way to get him and the other enlisted men into the new Officers Only social club.

Clyde Kusatsu makes his first appearance as Kwang Duk.  Odessa Cleveland (Bayliss), Gwen Farrell (Wilson), Roy Goldman (this time an Enlisted Man), Sheila Lauritsen (Watson), Kellye Nakahara (Yamato, who dances with Radar), and Robert F. Simon (Mitchell)  return.

M*A*S*H: Hot Lips and Empty Arms

M*A*S*H: Hot Lips and Empty Arms
CBS
December 15, 1973
Dramedy
DVD
B+

As the title indicates, this episode focuses on Margaret, but I honestly wasn't prepared for what a breath of fresh air it would be.  Seeing Linda Bloodworth and Mary Kay Place's names as the writers did give me hope, because not only is a female perspective welcome after a season and a half of boys will be boys, but Bloodworth would go on to create Designing Women.  The episode may not meet every definition of feminism, but it is wonderful to have Hot Lips tell everyone off, get drunk, and tell them all off again.  It's easy to tell that Swit had a great time doing this, and I bet female viewers at the time got a kick out of it, too.  Bloodworth wrote more four scripts for the show, and I'm curious to see what they're like.  Note, Margaret confesses to a crush on Trapper, and Hawkeye agrees.

Odessa Cleveland (Bayliss), Roy Goldman (this time the Man in Jeep), Sheila Lauritsen (this time Nurse Watson), Kellye Nakahara (for a change actually credited as Yamato), and Dennis Troy (this time the Soldier Standing Next to the Pole) all return.

M*A*S*H: Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde

M*A*S*H: Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde
CBS
October 13, 1973
Dramedy
DVD
B

Alan Alda and Robert Klane co-wrote this story in which sleep deprivation causes Hawkeye to go loopy (though not evil).  He refuses to stop operating and actually seems to function fine as a surgeon, but he does crazier than usual things, like sending a telegram to Truman and trying to haul the officers' latrine to North Korea.  I like the subtle way that Trapper looks after him, although it seems like everyone should intervene more and sooner.

Buck Young plays his middle of three M*A*S*H characters, O'Brien.  Roy Goldman and Dennis Troy have their first of several roles, as the Corpsman and the General's Aide respectively.  Odessa Cleveland (Bayliss), Kellye Nakahara (Yamato), and Herb Voland (Gen. Clayton for the last time) return.

M*A*S*H: For the Good of the Outfit

M*A*S*H: For the Good of the Outfit
CBS
October 6, 1973
Dramedy
DVD
B

Jerry Mayer's second of two M*A*S*H scripts is for the most part funnier, more intelligent, and more subversive than anything anyone was submitting at this time and I was going to give it a B+ or even an A-, until one regrettable moment brought it down.  A South Korean village is destroyed by the Americans.  Hawkeye and Trapper want to get the truth out there, but The Stars and Stripes blames it on the Chinese.  That this aired at the time that Watergate was being increasingly revealed, and Nixon's presidency was increasingly unraveling, may not be coincidental, and the way it plays out feels more '70sish than '60sish.  The government feels that if they rebuild the village (including with soft-serve ice cream and indoor plumbing) than they don't need to admit that they caused the damage.  Hawk and Trap disagree, and then find out that if they have a record as trouble-makers, that will follow them stateside.  As with Klinger not wanting to be labelled a homosexual, they cave in.

However, Burns, misunderstanding the situation, has saved the evidence, so the truth will come out, maybe.  Hawkeye and Trapper are so happy that they want to kiss Burns and Houlihan.  And so Hawkeye chases Frank while Trapper has Hot Lips pinned to the desk!  Why did they have to go there?  Why is this show so screwed up about consent issues?  For all the liberalism/ progressiveness, the sex-pol might as well be stuck back in the early '50s.  Still, I get it, H & T are wacky iconoclasts and this passed for humor at the time.  It'll be interesting to see when (if ever) the writers realized that the path of humor about the government is a more admirable one.  For now, Season Two has a self-destructive tendency it can hardly contain.

Gwen Farrell plays the first of several characters, Nurse Butler.  Odessa Cleveland (Bayliss), Lesley Evans (previously Nurse Bryan, this time Nurse Mason), Jeff Maxwell (Straminsky), Kellye Nakahara (Yamato), and Herb Voland (Clayton) all return.  Note that the letter from Hawkeye's dad, which provides a nifty little plot twist of its own, is dated May 24, 1951, five months before Radar's report.

M*A*S*H: Divided We Stand

M*A*S*H: Divided We Stand
CBS
September 15, 1973
Dramedy
DVD
B-

CBS shifted M*A*S*H over to what would be a winning Saturday night line-up, with this series that performed poorly in its first year now happily sandwiched between All in the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, with The Bob Newhart Show at 9:30.  (Bridget Loves Bernie had the 8:30 spot the previous year, but obviously would never be regarded as a classic sitcom by anyone.)  This season-opener does a nice job of (re)introducing the characters and set-up.  We know that the visiting psychiatrist will decide that, yes, this team is crazy but they do good work, and craziness is a survival mechanism.  Note that while Jamie Farr is still listed in the closing rather than opening credits, Klinger is one of the people whom we are told to tune in to see each week, and he has a couple scenes (and fetching outfits).

She's not credited, but Kellye Nakahara makes her debut as Lt. Kellye Yamato.  She'd go on to do an impressive 166 more episodes, including some where she'd have more to do than poor Ginger (Odessa Cleveland, returning, getting one line here I think) ever got.  Nakahara was 23 in '73, one of the younger members of the cast.

Linda Meiklejohn (in her last appearance as Henry's girlfriend Leslie Scorch), Bobbie Mitchell (previously Mason, here Marshall), and Herb Voland (Clayton) also return.  Lesley Evans plays Nurse Bryan, her first of three nurses that season.

M*A*S*H: Showtime

M*A*S*H: Showtime
CBS
March 25, 1973
Dramedy
DVD
B-

Different threads are interwoven, as a USO troupe performs, in this episode by Larry Gelbart and Robert Klane.  Even though no previous mention has been made of Mildred's pregnancy, Henry becomes a father for the third time, I think their first son.  Radar demonstrates why he's my favorite character, especially in the first season, not only by doing another drum solo but by bringing in a Korean baby for Blake to hold during this separation from his family.  And Hawkeye momentarily ships Trapper/Hot Lips.

Oksun Kim, who plays the Korean baby's mother, would be a Korean Wife later.  John Orchard (Ugly John) and Sheila Lauritsen (Nurse Hardy) return, while Harvey J. Goldenberg as Kaplan gets discharged.  Joey Forman, who's Jackie Flash, would be a Policeman on Three's Company.

The first season of M*A*S*H is more uneven than just about any season of any show I can think of*, as my grades ranging from D- to B+ indicates.  The series took much longer than its CBS "classmate" The Bob Newhart Show to find itself, but it did have challenges that most sitcoms don't, including the legacy of the movie version.  Also, what might've seemed like irreverent hijinks to Gelbart and company come across as asinine excursions into obnoxiousness, frequently sexist.

Furthermore, while Robert Altman is at home with a large cast, that just doesn't work on television, particularly with barely sketched in characters like Ugly John and Ginger.  They seem like they might have backstories, maybe even interesting ones, but we never find out.  I'd even argue that the television version of Trapper is close to a cypher, beyond his role as Hawkeye's partner in hijinks.  BNS knew early on that it was mainly about the basic five characters, and it just had to figure out the right mix of Bob's patients and other supporting cast.  M*A*S*H is far from figuring that out at this point, although the increased prominence of Father Mulcahy, as well as the recurrence of Klinger (far more vivid than the dozen or so background characters who are wasted this season), shows that the series is starting to get a clue.


*Whose Line Is It Anyway? may rival it, but then that's an improvised game show, so variation in quality is less of a surprise.

M*A*S*H: Dear Dad, Again

M*A*S*H: Dear Dad, Again
CBS
February 4, 1973
Dramedy
DVD
B-

Larry Gelbart co-wrote this episode with M*A*S*H newbie Sheldon Keller.  As the title suggests, Hawkeye is writing to his father again, although somehow he knows about things that happen even when he's not there.  (Is he omniscient?  Or do people tell him things?  Or is he spying other places than the nurses' shower tent?)  My favorite part is the talent show sequence, with Margaret singing loud and the others looking bored.  There's a sequence where Hawkeye is naked that uses props creatively in the way that the Austin Powers movies later would.  It would probably have more shock power, onscreen and to the home audience, if most of the camp hadn't presumably seen him naked at this point.  (The men in the showers and some of the women on dates.)  We find out that he has a sister and Frank has a brother.  And Klinger claims he's entitled to wear a white wedding dress since he's a virgin.

Gail Bowman makes her first of two appearances as Nurse Powell.  Odessa Cleveland (Bayliss) returns and is straight woman for Hawkeye's "snoo" joke.

M*A*S*H: The Ringbanger

M*A*S*H: The Ringbanger
CBS
January 21, 1973
Dramedy
DVD
B-

Jerry Mayer had already written a couple Bob Newhart Show scripts by this point, but this is his first of two for M*A*S*H.  The title character of Col. Buzz Brighton is both charming and gung-ho, and Leslie Nielsen is a good enough actor to pull this off, as well as the more farcical moments of the episode.  When Hawkeye and Trapper make him think that Burns is gay and after him, it's not exactly progressive, but on the other hand it's not homophobic per se.  (Arguably, the show is more sympathetic to homosexuality than to heterosexuality, in the sense that the straight relationships and interactions are seriously screwed up, pun semi-intended.  The gay jokes are comparatively gentle.)

Linda Meikeljohn returns as Scorch, still involved with Blake.  This is the first of thirteen M*A*S*H episodes former child star Jackie Cooper, then 50, directed.