M*A*S*H – Season Eleven
Collector’s Edition: The Final Season (1982
– 1983)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: D Episodes: B
After
over a decade of being a top show, M*A*S*H. could have continued long
past its prime like E.R., but Larry Gelbart and company decided the end
of the road was near and Season Eleven (1982 – 1983) would be it. To recap, Alan Alda headed the cast as
sensitive funny guy “Hawkeye” Pierce and Mike Farrell as Captain B.J.
Hunnicut stayed his last best friend at the 4077 to the end. Loretta Swit’s “Hot Lips” Houlihan, Jamie
Farr’s “Max” Klinger, David Ogden Stiers’ Major Winchester and Harry Morgan as
Colonel Potter lasted until the end as well.
We looked at the first ten seasons in a previous review,
which you’ll find at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/3634/M*A*S*H+(MASH)+Collector's+Editions+-+Seasons+One+-+Ten
The
episodes here are as follows:
DVD 1:
Hey, Look Me Over
Trick or Treatment
Foreign Affairs
The Joker Is Wild
Who Knew?
Bombshells
Settling Debts
The Moon Is Not Blue
DVD 2:
Run For The Money
U.N.
The Night & The Music
Strange Bedfellows
Say No More
Friends and Enemies
Give & Take
DVD 3
Goodbye, Farewell and Amen
These are
the final 16 shows, including the final TV movie episode Goodbye, Farewell & Amen, which set ratings records only
rivaled by telefilms like The Night
Stalker and Kenny Rogers’ The
Gambler, though some technically do not want to see it as a stand-alone TV
movie, but an extended final episode.
Still, it remains one of the biggest TV broadcasts ever and all in all
is the darkest show of all as Hawkeye is in a mental hospital after a nervous
breakdown from a mysterious incident on a bus.
Again, the option of watching all the shows without a
laugh track is here, though the final show has no laugh track available and
rightly so. Watching the show this time,
I realized that it had become overly dark throughout. The cast knew the laugh track thing was
beyond obsolete, the critical success of Hill
Street Blues vindicated their stance on the show and all had said and done
just about everything they could. Going
out on top like this was the best thing they could to, showing a sense of
integrity TV series rarely do anymore.
The 1.33 X 1 image is still on the soft side here, even as
compared to the previous 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
continued to the end to use bits of 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.
There are no extras, which will surprise fans who know
there is behind-the-scenes of the making of the final show. Why that was omitted is a mystery. Is Fox holding that prisoner for an After-M*A*S*H
box? We’ll see.
- Nicholas Sheffo