After M*A*S*H
I've just finished watching season three of M*A*S*H. I was looking forward to watching the final episode "Abyssinia, Henry". The last scene of that episode always amazed me... For those who don't know it: Colonel Henry Blake, the commander, is discharged. In the final scene, everyone is in the operating room after watching Henry take off in a helicopter. Radar stumbles into the operating room and delivers the message that Henry's plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan, and there are no survivors. The camera does a slow pan over the whole cast to capture their reactions.
The reason this scene always grabbed me: the reactions were un-rehearsed. The cast were told that they were doing a final surgery scene as a kind of "back to reality" sequence after the departure of Henry. It wasn't until very shortly before shooting the scene that Gary Burghoff was handed the page of the script with the message he was to deliver. The rest of the cast didn't know about it. (Hence one of the wonderful reactions to Radar's entrance when Hawkeye yells, "Radar, put on a mask...").
However, tonight I noticed an inconsistency in the scene that blew it for me (and probably, others have noticed it long before me -- what can I say, I'm slow...). Corporal Klinger is in the operating room, assisting Trapper and Hawkeye as a nurse... Nowhere else in the series is it ever indicated that Klinger has enough medical background to be assisting surgeons during an operation. I understand the reasons for doing it: they wanted to have Klinger in a good place to get his reaction, etc. However, that should have made the rest of the cast suspicious that something was up.
Ahhh well, just one of those irritating oddities...
Well, I was going to add something else to this post... But I will make a seperate entry as this one is getting a bit long...
The reason this scene always grabbed me: the reactions were un-rehearsed. The cast were told that they were doing a final surgery scene as a kind of "back to reality" sequence after the departure of Henry. It wasn't until very shortly before shooting the scene that Gary Burghoff was handed the page of the script with the message he was to deliver. The rest of the cast didn't know about it. (Hence one of the wonderful reactions to Radar's entrance when Hawkeye yells, "Radar, put on a mask...").
However, tonight I noticed an inconsistency in the scene that blew it for me (and probably, others have noticed it long before me -- what can I say, I'm slow...). Corporal Klinger is in the operating room, assisting Trapper and Hawkeye as a nurse... Nowhere else in the series is it ever indicated that Klinger has enough medical background to be assisting surgeons during an operation. I understand the reasons for doing it: they wanted to have Klinger in a good place to get his reaction, etc. However, that should have made the rest of the cast suspicious that something was up.
Ahhh well, just one of those irritating oddities...
Well, I was going to add something else to this post... But I will make a seperate entry as this one is getting a bit long...