M*A*S*H Collector’s
Editions – Seasons 1 – 10 (1972 –
1982/Fox DVD)
Picture: C
Sound: C+ Extras: D Episodes: B
Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H (1970) is a remarkable
story of a film in that it ever got made, was as smart as it was, as strong as
it was and became such a huge critical and commercial success. That the success continued as a somewhat
different hit TV series is even more amazing.
In the hands of writer Larry Gelbart, the show set new standards of
realism for television the way the film had, especially when it came to the
medical aspects of the surgeries the medical unit of the title had to go
through with. Fox has been issuing the
series season by season and each has finally produced the show in the most
watchable way possible, with the original soundtracks you never heard on TV and
the convenience of DVD.
Alan Alda headed the cast as sensitive funny guy “Hawkeye”
Pierce and Wayne Rogers joined him as “Trapper John” McIntyre (who did not
reprise the role for a spin-off series) for only the first three seasons. That the duo from the film only lasted so
long speaks to the risks and variations the show would become famous for. The late comic actor McLean Stevenson played
Col. Henry Blake as long, but his time was ended in one of the most infamous
departures in TV history. Stevenson
shocked the entertainment world by saying he was leaving the show before it had
reached its height to go on to “bigger and better things” assuring people he
knew what he was doing. The producers
made sure his character never came back in a way to warn the rest of the cast
not to take the show for granted as some trivial stepping-stone.
Larry Linville’s Major Frank Burns lasted until 1977, Gary
Burghoff’s “Radar” O’Reilly lasted until 1979, while Loretta Swit’s “Hot Lips”
Houlihan and Jamie Farr’s “Max” Klinger lasted the whole show. Farr even continued in the ill-fated spin-off
After- M*A*S*H. Succeeding Rogers
and Stevenson as new permanent characters fore the rest of the show was Mike
Farrell as Captain B.J. Hunnicut and Harry Morgan as Colonel Potter in later
1975. They made people forget the
earlier lost characters to some extent and David Ogden Stiers arrived in 1977
as the stuffy Major Winchester. His
presence ticked off viewers who deserved to be annoyed by a character who was
more like they were then they would admit.
When the show was initially a hit, this critic was never a
fan and could never totally believe why the show was a hit. A few decades later, I can see how viewers
were ignoring the show’s own shtick and the laughtrack no one liked all those
years. Seeing the show without the phony
laughs, it can be taken more seriously and the jokes have a new irony beyond
anything the original broadcast sound offered.
Whether the show was seen as really being about Korea or
the Vietnam fiasco that Altman’s film definitely was despite a lame disclaimer,
the series saw the country through the latter and was considered a new high
watermark of realism in general for television.
It is fair to say this was the first half-hour drama, despite the humor
or unwanted canned laughs. The issue,
which surfaced again with Hill Street Blues, is the meaning of that
realism. Perhaps this is a by-product of
the broadcast networks feeling the pressure to compete with a vibrant PBS or
the last golden age of intelligent, mature motion pictures, but when non-fans
tuned in and experienced the humor while being set up for this “realism” that
was being hyped, they tuned out.
Fortunately, the show had more than enough viewers to be a
long running success for the network, but the truth is the show was not bound
to one genre (War, Comedy, Drama) but pretty good at all of them and these DVDs
finally give us the director’s cuts, producer’s cuts, writer’s cuts, actor’s
cuts and true version of every other cut of a show that despite repetition was
ahead of its time. On the downside,
there is a problematic us/them dichotomy that the show could not avoid and
maybe did not want to, in order to secure right-of-center viewers and could be
seen as a show that made Reagan Democrats possible, no matter what the intents
of the creators. That somewhat
reactionary aspect even led to an action figure toy line in 1982 we would have
never seen with Altman’s film or in Altman’s time. So much for the extent of “realism” the show
offered, as “realism” is often an excuse to mask ideology. The actors were so good here, though, with
their work finally getting the intended playback deserved.
The 1.33 X 1 image varies throughout the ten sets, but the
better prints and transfers remind us how well this show was shot. In the lesser transfers, of which there are
more than one would like to see, the image has color issues or is slightly hazy
in a way it should not be, but that even looks better than copies we have seen
on TV over the years. The DeLuxe color
is much in the mode of the feature film, with muted colors in a simple fashion,
versus the crazy digital gutting out we see today. The show even used some footage from the
feature film in its credits and maybe some episodes here and there. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is here in a few
languages and two English versions.
The much-celebrated difference is that you can watch the
show with its original, obnoxious laugh track that the makers never could convince
CBS to drop, or new soundtracks minus the canned laughs that sound like they go
back to 1940s radio broadcasts. The ones
with the laugh tracks show their age in their dated fidelity. The great thing about the ones without the
canned laughs is that they are much cleaner, clearer and because they were
stored away properly, in better condition than you would expect. The result is that sound effects sound
better, dialogue is clearer in particular and that benefits the scene space and
acting performances. Music is also
better, but it is too bad these could not be in simple stereo. There are no extras on these sets, though
many consider these better soundtracks to be the one extra they had wanted for
years. As far as this critic is
concerned, it is the only way to watch the show.
For more on the classic 1970 film, try this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9019/M*A*S*H+(1970/aka+MASH/Fox+Blu-r
For the conclusion of this series, try this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4530/M*A*S*H+%E2%80%93+Season+Elev
- Nicholas Sheffo
