M*A*S*H: Welcome to Korea

M*A*S*H: Welcome to Korea
CBS
September 12, 1975
Dramedy
DVD
B-

Gelbart, Greenbaum, and Fritzell wrote this hour-long episode in which Hawkeye finds out that Trapper is on his way home, and his replacement, 28-year-old B.J. Hunnicut, is arriving.  So Hawkeye goes with Radar to the Kimpo airport.  He just misses Trapper.  (Wayne Rogers, according to IMDB, is uncredited as the Man on the PA in Kimpo.)  But he does meet with and spend most of the rest of the episode bonding with B.J., who's new to Korea but soon loses much of his shininess.  Meanwhile, Frank is in nominal command, although Margaret seems to be signing the papers.

At one point, Klinger claims to be wearing a flowered hat because it's Spring, but at the very end of the episode we're told that Col. Potter will be arriving on Sept. 19, 1952, and we get a brief glimpse of him interacting with Radar.  I suspect they just wanted the date to align with the next week's air-date.  Note that Hawkeye says he lived with Trapper for over a year.  At this point, there should be ten months left of the war, so it'll be interesting to see how they get around that in Season Five and beyond.  In any case, this is an interesting, if sometimes a bit forced kick-off for Season Four, and it's good to see Christopher and Farr promoted to the opening credits.  Oh, and M*A*S*H was now shifted over to Fridays.  I definitely wasn't watching it then;  Donny & Marie was a more likely selection when I was seven.

Kimiko Hiroshige's role as the Korean Mother is her first of four on the show.  Robert Karnes is a Colonel here and would later be a General.  Tom Dever (this time the M.P. Lieutenant), Roy Goldman (as Roy Goldman), Virginia Ann Lee (formerly the title character on "The Moose," this time a Korean Daughter, perhaps the one Radar saves), and Jeff Maxwell (Straminsky) return.