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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2017 3:36:19 GMT
I consider M*A*S*H arguably the most overrated TV show of all time.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2017 3:43:04 GMT
I consider M*A*S*H arguably the most overrated TV show of all time. I would pick Modern Family.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2017 4:46:42 GMT
Colonel Flagg. I hated that guy! :-D I love that show. I got every season. And those episodes with him were among my favorites hah he was such a strange and annoying character! I'd be suprised to see other Americans not like this show. Alda did such a great job on writing and acting. It's easy to see the Marx Bros influence all over. I'd understand non-US posters not liking it as the refferences to pop culture or historic contexts might be missed or just not relatable.
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Post by pippinmaniac on Mar 9, 2017 4:54:56 GMT
I still remember where I was when the very last episode was shown. I was in my dorm at college. The lobby was full of people watching M*A*S*H, so I had to sit on the staircase. Tears were shed. It was the end of an era.
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OmegaWolf747
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Post by OmegaWolf747 on Mar 10, 2017 16:39:18 GMT
That had to be the greatest finale a TV series could have. It was almost like a movie. Start with a movie, end with a movie.
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Post by Richard Kimble on Mar 10, 2017 16:40:19 GMT
I consider M*A*S*H arguably the most overrated TV show of all time. The first three seasons are perhaps the greatest run any sitcom ever had But Maclean Stevenson (Henry Blake) and Wayne Rogers (Trapper) left after the third season, replaced by Harry Morgan as Potter and Mike Farrell as BJ. The show's creator, the brilliant comedy writer Larry Gelbart, left soon afterward, allowing Alan Alda to take over creative control of the series. So not only were the cast replacements inferior (Stevenson was absolutely perfect as Blake; Rogers was better than Farrell, but the real difference is the Trapper character was much more interesting than dull BJ) but Alda was able to smother the show in 70s liberalism. Few great shows have gone so far downhill ( MASH's only real rival in this department is All In The Family). So whenever you're talking about MASH, you're really talking about two different shows -- First three seasons (Great) and everything afterward (Blecch)
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Post by jaystarstar on Mar 10, 2017 17:49:53 GMT
BJ was OK; it was a good idea to make him a (mostly) devoted family man instead of another wild-man skirt chaser like Trapper; if they were gonna bring in another guy like that they might as well just have recast Trapper.
I thought that Charles was (eventually) a better character than Frank Burns, who had developed into basically just an incompetent boob and a selfish jerk. Charles was arrogant and effete and pompous etc etc, but he was indeed a very good doctor and toward the end shown to have real feelings. He could still be stuffy and stuck up but underneath it all he was a good guy. He was a sparring partner for Hawkeye, not a nemesis like Frank.
Remember also the teevee show was never permitted to use one of the most striking characteristics of Frank Burns in the movie: that he was a Bible-spewing Jesus freak. CBS didn't want to make a hardcore religious guy a 'villain' of the series so they wrote out most of Frank's religious fixations.
Henry Blake had also developed into a cartoon character as the show went along. It was hard to believe such a dork/doof could run an Army unit more than a couple weeks. Maybe it was because he had longer to develop, but Col. Potter ended up as a better character and you could buy him as a camp CO.
Another factor was that M*A*S*H the movie was released in the very peak years of the Vietnam War when questioning authority and rebellion were very much topical.
The TV show debuted as Vietnam was winding down and then when it reached middle and late periods, Vietnam was over and we weren't at war with anybody any more.
So in many ways the storylines just became rebellious guys battling the bureaucracy, which is the standard plotline of any show in an office setting. Everybody always has hassles with ridiculous and idiotic corporate managers.
The Klinger-in-drag and Hot Lips-as-a-slut schticks had both gone as far as they needed to, so it was probably good to recast those characters as more serious. (Really, once Frank left, there was no point in Margaret being a sexpot any more unless they were going to try to sell a running romance with Hawkeye -- which of course they finally did hint at the very end of the series.)
But pretty much across the board the entire cast had become far more serious. As a result the show transitioned from a funny sitcom to a fairly serious drama. It's probably good they did that; if they just tried to rehash the slapstick comedy of the early seasons they would have run out of gas sooner.
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Post by Utpe on Mar 12, 2017 22:13:51 GMT
I do hate the fact that Alan Alda used M*A*S*H as his own personal soapbox for political grandstanding but, without Hawkeye, there is no show.
The first three seasons are the best, up until they killed off Henry Blake. The last episode of the first season (Showtime) is terribly underrated. And, of course, Goodbye, Farewell and Amen will always be the best. I believe it's still the most watched out of any other T.V. series.
There are some funny episodes from the fourth season onward such as Season 4, Episode 17 - Der Tag, but it did become way too preachy towards the end. I'm willing to bet that's exactly why there's no laugh track option from the fifth season up until the eleventh.
They really did overstay their welcome. It was too difficult to have a three-year war over the course of eleven seasons. They made so many continuity errors, the obvious one being Season 9, Episode 6 - A War for All Seasons. Col. Potter wasn't even with the 4077th in 1950! As a matter of fact, he was a Major General in Season 3, Episode 1 - The General Flipped at Dawn, LMAO!
Anyhow, I still love it, even to this day. My father would watch it every single time they had reruns. I remember watching a few episodes with him as a kid, but starting in 2002 when DVDs were fairly new, I purchased the first season. I was immediately hooked on the Pilot episode.
As for the movie...well, it was a bit too dark for my taste. Though, I'm glad Gary Burghoff decided to keep playing Radar in the series.
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OmegaWolf747
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Post by OmegaWolf747 on Mar 13, 2017 1:01:42 GMT
I'm so glad MASH is finally out on DVD. It wasn't when I searched a few years ago. I hope digital streaming comes next.
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Post by fangirl1975 on Mar 30, 2017 20:48:00 GMT
The early seasons were great. The later seasons were merely decent.
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Post by airborne3502 on May 20, 2017 10:57:07 GMT
M*A*S*H is everywhere now. It's currently on TVLand, MeTV, and AMC.
I'm glad another generation is getting a good look at this fine show.
There are jokes in some of the episodes that would never get past the censors today.
It aged like a marriage. Exciting and vibrant at first, then settling into a more mature and comfortable rhythm. Not every episode was gold.
I'd love to see the show get the Blu-ray treatment. Imagine all the detail we've missed in that dirty, dusty camp that would suddenly be visible.
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Post by bravomailer on May 20, 2017 13:47:10 GMT
RIP Edward Winter (Col. Flagg) I was in the army in the early 70s and many of us thought Col Flagg was hilarious. "Do you read me?"
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Post by geezer on Jun 7, 2017 3:17:11 GMT
Colonel Flagg. I hated that guy! :-D He was hateful, but hilarious.
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Post by phantomeagle on Jan 23, 2019 4:47:30 GMT
I loved the character of Charles Emerson Winchester. Unlike the cartoonish Frank Burns, Charles was a three-dimensional character who evolved during his time on the show. I remember a late episode when Charles and Hawkeye were expressing mutual admiration for their fathers; it was a bonding moment, and it ended with the two men shaking hands. In the record-breaking farewell episode, Charles taught some North Korean POW's to play music. Later, when those soldiers were killed, Charles vowed to give up music, which was his passion. I hope that vow was short-lived, and that he found a prodigy in the US who would rekindle that passion. I had the distinct honor of meeting David Ogden Stiers in 1987. My mother played 2nd violin for an orchestra near where I grew up, and DOS was a guest conductor. Being family of an orchestra member I was able to go back stage. I shook his hand and said that I was half tempted to say Hey Charles. He laughed and was pleased that I was not only a huge fan of M*A*S*H, but that I was a classical music fan. He was rather impressed that I recognized the encore piece that the guest pianist played. I asked him if the bit of him conducting the Korean P.O.Ws was his idea, and he said that having Charles being a lover of classical music was a requirement of his signing onto the show.
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Post by them1ghtyhumph on Jan 23, 2019 9:03:39 GMT
I remember on a thread on the old imdb board someone was discussing Frank Burns, and it occured to me that had MASH been a British sitcom, Frank Burns would have been the star. Our most popular sitcoms tend to revolve around silly people doing silly things. We tend not to make sitcom stars out of smart wisecracking types. That's true actually. Brits like the more anti hero, bumbling type who sometimes succeeds despite himself. I would have liked to see Frank win more often and have a more human side allowed to show through. He really was in an impossible situation in that camp. Are you fucking kidding? FRANK was in an impossible situation in that camp?? What fucking show were you watching? Frank wasn't the anti-hero, he was the schmuck that would have caused at least another 150 casualties if he were in charge.
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Post by marianne48 on Jan 25, 2019 0:49:55 GMT
The episode "The Interview" featured the TV reporter who interviews the members of the MASH unit, documentary style. Father Mulcahy mentions watching the doctors cut open a patient on a very cold day and warming themselves from the heat escaping from the patient's incision. He says something like, "Can anyone see that and not feel changed?" That would have been the perfect last line to that episode. But Hawkeye, of course, had to have the last (forgettable) line.
Another flawed episode was the one in which the doctors try to keep a mortally wounded soldier alive until December 26, so that his family doesn't have to associate Christmas Day with the day their loved one died. The soldier doesn't make it; Hawkeye solves the problem by manually moving the clock forward. Again, the episode would have been stronger if Father Mulcahy had falsified the time by moving the clock forward, something totally unexpected from him but a touching act of mercy (especially after B.J. lashed out at him for giving the patient last rites). But stardom won out again over an unexpected plot twist.
Then there was the episode in which Hawkeye is injured and is taken in by a Korean family, to whom he delivers an episode-long monologue (none of the family members speak or understand English, so sorry--no lines for them). One of the worst episodes of the series.
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Post by vrkalak on Apr 8, 2019 20:19:28 GMT
I liked it until it became The Alan Alda Complaint of the Week Show. Yup However the first three seasons are perhaps the best run any sitcom ever had. Yes, episodes with Henry Blake and Trapper were by far the best.
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Post by louise on May 5, 2019 17:05:54 GMT
I love the first three seasons, which were brilliant. I have watched them over and over again over the years and still find them hilarious. But I never really recovered from the departure of Henry and Trapper, and didn't really warm to their replacements (especially B.J., who I thought was lame). and it got more and more sentimental as time went on, and moreover became increasingly surreal as a war which lasted barely three years went on for over a decade.
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Post by snsurone on Oct 20, 2019 14:38:38 GMT
There was an early episode where Frank Burns was in charge of a group of Korean orphans. One little girl was a piano prodigy , but her brilliant playing was met only by a couple of snarky comments from "Ferret-Face". Believe me, if that episode featured Charles, he would have moved heaven and earth to get her into a conservatory in the US! And then when he returned home, he would have had the honor of attending her first solo concert.
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Post by millar70 on Oct 20, 2019 22:00:15 GMT
While there were some great episodes in the last few years, you could definitely make the argument that they should have stopped when Radar left.
Or BJ with the mustache, real simple formula: anything with original cast is great, anything before BJ grew the mustache is more than likely great, anything after the mustache might be iffy.
Trapper > BJ Blake > Potter (though much closer) Charles > Frank (Winchester best thing about later years)
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