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Review & Description
As the fourth season opens, Hawkeye returns from a 3-day R&R pass in Tokyo to find Trapper has been sent Stateside. Hawkeye races to the airport but arrives just as TrapperÂ's plane takes off. Too late to tell his friend good-bye, he in nevertheless just in time to welcome TrapperÂ's replacement, Captain B.J. Hunnicutt. Once Hawkeye gets over his anger and disappointment, he realizes B.J. is a worthy ally and takes the newcomer under his wing. Â"The first thing you learn here, B.J., is that insanity is no worse than the common cold. YouÂ've heard of a military post? Ours is a compost. Only the wounded are new. The tedium is relieved only by the boredom. So pitch in, muddle through, pip-pip. Never mind the reason why, ours is but to do and not let Â'em die.Â"
Then Colonel Sherman T. Potter arrives to take over command of the 4077. Not only are Frank and Hot Lips outraged that Frank has lost his command so quickly, but Hawkeye and B.J. know that a Â"liferÂ" Army commander could spell big trouble for them. But then a single reminiscence from Potter puts the docs at ease: Â"Had a still on Guam in World War II. One night it blew up. ThatÂ's how I got my Purple Heart.Â" One of M*A*S*H's best and must-own seasons marked a turning point for this Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning series. It would be the last for peerless comedy writer Larry Gelbart (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Tootsie), who developed M*A*S*H for television and served as the series' comic voice, conscience, and beating heart. But this old soldier did not just fade away. He concluded his tour with "The Interview," the stunning season finale and a series benchmark. This black-and-white episode, which he wrote and directed, features Clete Roberts interviewing the members of the 4077th (with the notable exception of Loretta Swit's Major Houlihan) about life and death at the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (a special citation to William Christopher as Father Mulcahy, who provides the episode's most dramatic moment reflecting on how the doctors warm themselves on the steam that rises from the patients' open wounds).
Reporting for duty in season 4 is Mike Farrell as B.J. Hunnicutt, a welcome replacement for the departed Wayne Rogers. In the Emmy-winning season opener, "Welcome to Korea," Hawkeye (Alan Alda) takes the overwhelmed B.J. under his wing. By episode's end, he is drunk and addressing the insufferable "head twerp" Major Burns (Larry Linville) as "ferret face." The second episode brings a "Change of Command" with the arrival of Henry Morgan as Col. Potter, "regular Army," but compassionate and capable. The Gelbart years were distinguished by the deft balancing of comedy and drama (M*A*S*H is that rare comedy series that plays better without a laugh track, which this set offers as a viewing option). In the Gelbart-directed episode "Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler?," a wounded bomber pilot identifies himself as Jesus Christ. Gelbart also directed and co-wrote "Hawkeye," an Alda tour de force in which Hawkeye takes refuge with a non-English-speaking South Korean family after overturning his jeep and sustaining a concussion, requiring him to talk nonstop to keep from losing consciousness. The departure of key creative and ensemble personnel would be enough to fatally wound a lesser series, but M*A*S*H would solider on. --Donald Liebenson Read more
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