Benjamin Franklin

Although I've watched plenty of TV, there's one show that tops them all in my book: M.A.S.H. It's the one show I had to get as a full set on DVD. Funny story though, how I came about to watch it. Or at least peculiar, I can't really be that funny, or peculiar. Anyway! It had to be early 2000s, when VHS was still hip, the new network then called Tvtv (nowadays Subtv) started to show old tv-shows and played adds for M.A.S.H frequently. I very enthusiastically refused to watch it, since I hate anything warish and this was about the Korean War. But then I came in with a bad flu (or some other illness, can't recall) and was stuck on the couch for a week. With nothing to do, I watched anything that was on. Even M.A.S.H. And I loved it. It was funny, and did not glorify the war in any way, quite the contrary. And I had quite a crush on Benjamin Franklin Pierce. Enough to make him the title.



Now I didn't see the show from the start, only from Season 8 forward. One the first episodes was the one where Raydar left. I only saw the first seasons when I purchased them on DVD.  Then I went on buying them, since it was a show me and Valentine both liked and since I wanted to get my old favourite: Dear Uncle Abdul. It was a hilarious episode, which got me my first job! I used he joke Haweye tells in my job interview. That competition between Hawk and Beej was rib-cracking! Well, when I got to that season, I just had to get the rest, and now I have them all.

And I just started to watch them again, but skipped right through to Season 6, which is becoming my favourite. In the first seasons there are just too many similar characters. Hawkeye and Trapper are both lecherous, boozing and marvellous doctors. Houlihan and Burns are the two Majors who love the war and the army. Everyone walks all over the goofy Blake who is pairing Raydar as comic relief. It got a bit more interesting with first Potter, who was the firm sensible leader, and then BJ, who was on Hawkeye's side, but still a more cunning prankster, more laid back and faithful to his wife and missed his daughter to bits. But things got really interesting once Charles Emerson Winchester III came along.

The first five seasons had put Captain Pierce on this high pedestal. Despite his commitment issues and fancy for liquour, he was the head surgeon, best of the bunch. Everyone looked up to him, laughed at his pranks, he got the girls, the whole thing. But then he fell. And hard. And all in three episodes that begun Season 6. Winchester came, and proved to be a more skilled surgeon. Also had an even bigger ego than Hawk. Pierce and Hunnicutt now had an adversary of their own caliber. They couldn't push Winchester around like they did with Burns and it gave the show a whole another pace.

And right after the episodes introducing Charles, came the episode that might just top my previous favourite, the hilarious Abdul. In that episode, Raydar get's hurt, Hawk blames himself and goes into the operation room still drunk from last night. The mighty fall from great heights and Pierce becomes very humane, faced with his errors and finally being put on account for them. And then there's Winchester, rubbing it in :D It also shows a turning point in the relationship of Pierce and Raydar. I get misty-eyed every time I see that salute from Hawkeye to this lad who's looked up to him all this time... Not one of the funniest episodes, but oh so great!

Also, that episode was written and directed by Alan Alda himself. There are an increasing amount of those in the latter seasons, and most of them are among the more serious of episodes. I love him as Hawkeye, but I still squee when I see him in newer shows/movies, never mind how white-haired he became :3

Anyway, if you haven't seen this show yet, give it a shot! Or a whole still's worth :D And if you have seen it, go see it again.