As the eighth season opens, Radar receives a letter from home proving war is not the only place where death strikes unexpectedly. The news quickly has Radar shipping stateside, followed by a period of adjustment as everyone tries to get used to a nervous and bumbling Klinger being in charge as company clerk. Things go from bad to worse as both Colonel Potter and Charles have to be quarantined with mumps. Then Hawkeye decides to stop drinking after receiving a bar bill so big that he’s shocked into realizing, “I could have bought a used Studebaker for this!”
Aside from incoming wounded, the 4077 is besieged by congressional aides, doctors demonstrating new techniques, inspecting colonels and a return visit from psychiatrist Sidney Freedman. Now if only everyone would just go away so the docs could get some sleep!Unlike the good doctors of the 4077 (otherwise known as “this hellhole” and “sewer”), M*A*S*H shows little signs of fatigue in its eighth season. Familiar characters reveal new sides of themselves and the series itself performs some radical surgery on sitcom convention. The most pivotal personnel change is the departure of Gary Burghoff, the only ensemble member to have appeared in the original film, as Radar. His splendid two-part send-off sets the stage for one of the season’s best episodes, the Emmy-nominated “Period of Adjustment,” in which Klinger (Jamie Farr) must begin to make the role of company clerk his own, and family man B.J. Honeycutt (Mike Farrell) is devastated when a letter from home relates how his baby daughter called a visiting Radar “Daddy.” Pompous Charles Emerson Winchester III (David Ogden Stiers) gets his “Of course I care” episode when he tends to a classical pianist who has lost the use of his hands in “Morale Victory.” Harry Morgan, as Colonel Henry Potter, was honored with an Emmy, most likely for the emotional episode “Old Soldiers,” in which he receives word that the last of his World War I band of brothers has passed on. Loretta Switt was also saluted by the Academy for her work this season. Among her best episodes is “Are You Now, Margaret?” in which she is accused of being a communist sympathizer.
Two episodes truly distinguish themselves: “Life Time,” which unfolds in real time as the doctors race against the clock to perform an emergency procedure that requires a graft from a dying soldier; and “Dreams,” writer-director Alan Alda’s Emmy-nominated, love-it-or-hate it episode that visits the nightmares of the sleep-deprived doctors. M*A*S*H continues to walk the scalpel’s edge between hilarious comedy (“Too Many Cooks,” “April Fools”) and powerful drama (“Heal Thyself, in which a visiting doctor suddenly suffers a break down, and “Guerilla My Dreams,” which climaxes with a tense standoff between the doctors, who have saved the life of a wounded female Korean guerilla, and the North Korean officer hellbent on executing her. As with past M*A*S*H sets, viewers have the preferred option of viewing the episodes without the intrusive laugh track. But we’re putting whoever’s in command on report for yet again not managing to stitch together any kind of cast commentary, interviews, or archival goodies. –Donald Liebenson
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December 22, 2010
#1
Radar’s final year didn’t mean any less fun for M*A*S*H – Spoilers aplenty.,
Season eight was the final year for Radar. His personal life was just taking too much time. It was also harder and harder to explain why he was not on the show anymore. This season had many good episodes, like every other season, to me. Many spoilers here, but it seems that everyone knows the episodes well enough.
Too Many Cooks. – Hawkeye and B.J walk into the mess tent to talk to Klinger about issues at the camp. Klinger puts food in their faces, and they smell it, then taste it. Surprisingly, for M*A*S*H food it’s good. Turns out a clumsy soldier is an excellent cook. Potter, though, is having serious issues. He’s very angry and snapping at anyone who happens to get close to him. He puts an end to the good food, accusing Hawkeye of tricking him and lying.
Are You Now, Margaret? – A congressional aid belies his reasons for being there when he accuses her of being a commie. The main cast work to free her from his grip.
Goodbye Radar (Part I)- Two parter that sees Radar returning from R&R to find that there is no generator. No light, no suction means serious problems for everyone. Potter heads into the swamp to tell the swamprats that Radar’s Uncle Ed died. This is after Radar couldn’t find a generator anywhere. This episode ends in Radar’s office with Potter, B.J, and Hawkeye consoling Radar after a phone call home. He gets his orders from Potter to sign hardship discharge papers. Radar is going home.
Goodbye Radar (Part II) – No generator means Radar feels guilty and decides to stay. He feels that if he leaves that the camp would fall apart. Potter says that he’s not thinking with his head. Hawkeye is far more blunt telling him to go home. Klinger gets a generator which convinces Radar that it’s time to go home. The planned party is ruined by incoming wounded. This is the last episode in which we get to see Klinger in dresses as his main costume, though he occasionally wears them.
Period of Adjustment – Klinger can’t get the hang of being company clerk. B.J meanwhile get a letter from Peg. His daughter, Erin, calls Radar Daddy! B.J just can’t get over it, decks Hawkeye, wrecks the still, and storms out of the Swamp. Everyone is angry with Klinger for not being able to get the job done, especially Margaret who’s short on nurses. B.J and Klinger both decide that it’s high time to get drunk to drown their issues. Rosie throws them out of her bar when they start throwing darts and nearly hit a Marine. Mulcahy, sitting in the Messtent helps Potter realize that Klinger might just need time. Potter and Margaret find B.J and Klinger in his office, drunk. Margaret finds Hawkeye, who goes to B.J, who’s nearly passed out on the floor. Hawkeye consoles B.J who realizes that any soldier could’ve been called Daddy. It just happened to be Radar. Klinger helps the swamp rats rebuild the still.
Mr. and Mrs. Who? – Charles comes back from R&R extremely hung-over after a conference in Tokyo. He can’t remember anything. Klinger comes in to tell him that a “Mrs. Chuck Winchester III” has called and is coming. He feels a sense of dread coming over him. Turns out the marriage is a sham, done by a bartender! Charles kept saying “will someone marry us before it’s too late. Meanwhile the camp is fighting a deadly fever that is slowly killing patients in Post-Op, and they’re at a loss at what to do. In the end the Winchester get a sham divorce from Dr. J.B Honeydo (BJ), and they get a hold of the fever and celebrate with the patient who got it first and was the worst of the sick patients.
Life Line – A very unique show, and a first for television. The entire show is encapsulated in nearly a half hour of real time, except the last two minutes. A chopper brings in a wounded patient who’s missing part of his aorta. Hawkeye uses a pocket knife to get to the heart and spends the next nearly 20 minutes keeping the aorta closed with his finger. B.J, meanwhile, is working on getting part of an aorta from a patient who’s brain dead, but his body is still fighting. Almost entirely filmed in Pre-op and O.R, aside from a few moments on the bus, chopper, and post-op. No laugh track, and no humor at all. The friend of the patient that is brain dead is rather angry at B.J for waiting for him to die. B.J says that he stopped being a person when the grenade hit his head. Mulcahy helps the guy realize that what he’s doing is the ultimate sacrifice and he’s saving another life. Very serious and very good episode.
Dear Uncle Absul – Klinger writes home and tells of of hunting with Charles, where Klinger chases a bird he shot. Unfortunately it hits a land mine. Margaret has serious foot locker issues. Klinger tells her that it has to be damaged in battle for the military to replace it. After finding that someone broke in and stole personal items from her foot locker Margaret borrows Charles’ gun to shoot her footlocker, drops it at Klinger’s feet…
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|December 22, 2010
#2
A turkey? I think NOT!,
I grew up watching M*A*S*H, from season one I found the entire series to age very well, even in 2005. What I’m finding as the series has cycled around again via the daily repeats on the Hallmark Channel, is that as the series moved along and through various cast changes, the characters matured and the show evolved from being closer to slapstick in its first couple seasons to a much more family atmosphere that felt a lot more real. Not to take anything away from Henry Blake, trapper John or Frank Burns…those characters and shows were sheer comic genius and there’s been nothing like them before or since…but I found BJ Hunnicutt and Colonel Potter to be more down-to-earth and more believable characters with real emotions and I felt like we got to know the characters better in the later years (even Winchester showed a side of himself towards the end that no one would have expected when he first came on board). Gary Burghoff left during season eight for the same reasons that Larry Linville did after the fifth year…he simply felt he had done all he could with Radar’s character. The cast changes didn’t change things for me even the slightest in my enjoyment of the show…facts of life for an ensemble like “M*A*S*H” or “ER” where people come, people go and the characters adapt. Season eight of this series brought some very touching and some very funny moments to what will always be in my mind one of the best half-hours on television for years to come.
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|December 22, 2010
#3
Dear MASHer,
Hey Cpl.K… it’s true that this series is set during the Korean War… no one can dispute that, but it is fathomable that much of the anti-war satire in the show was aimed specifically at the Vietnam war – which seems logical considering the times that the show was aired.
I guess either you hate MASH or you love it. It seems that not many people are “in-between” when it comes to war issues. But I have to say, aside from missing Radar… I find MASH to just keep getting better as the show progresses. By season eight, the characters are well set in their roles and their interaction with each other, is not merely slapstick, as it was in the earlier seasons, but more emotional and family like. They even play jokes on each other with good-humor and love. In the earlier days practical jokes were usually played to get even with Frank or Hot-Lips… but now even Margaret gets in on the shenanigans, and we see that they are all just people trying to keep their heads on straight through some very difficult times (to say the least).
I can’t wait to have the entire series on DVD… as you can probably tell, I just love a good sense of humor. This series has it and more… because it expresses humor within some pretty bleak circumstances.
Keep your eye out for episode: “Period of Adjustment” Where Klinger, the new “Clumpity Kirk” makes his first attempt to fill Radar’s shoes.
Louie
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