30 Days of TV Meme -- Day 12
Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times.
This could be any episode of Star Trek: The Original Series or any episode of M*A*S*H, because I've seen every episode of both shows. I've already talked about Star Trek in answering another question, so I'm going to talk about M*A*S*H today. And in an effort to contain this somewhat, I'm going to pick an exceptional episode for each of the first three seasons. Why the first three? Because eleven episodes are too much to do in one post. And I'm not posting about my favorite episodes, necessarily--just the ones that, among all the others I saw for each season, stood out.
Season 1: Sometimes You Hear the Bullet. Originally aired January 28, 1973.
This was the seventeenth episode of the first season (yeah, TV seasons were longer back then). Up till then, the show had been comic in nature, mostly involving pranks by Hawkeye and Trapper John as well as people trying to relieve tension in a war zone. One episode that I love, "Tuttle," involved Hawkeye's imaginary childhood friend, with Hawk and Trapper creating an insane personnel file for Captain Jonathan S. Tuttle of Battle Creek, Michigan, donating all of Tuttle's back pay to a local orphanage, and being forced to kill him off in a way that wouldn't leave a corpse when Tuttle attracted the attention of the brass...who wanted to give him a medal. It was a very funny episode...
...which, two episodes later, was followed by the first episode in which the doctors lose a patient--and to make matters worse, it's Hawkeye's childhood friend Tommy.
Tommy Gillis, a journalist who's joined the infantry, shows up at the 4077th perfectly fine. He's just visiting his old friend. And he tells Hawkeye that he's writing a book about life at the front called You Never Hear the Bullet. He tells Hawkeye that the title comes from a kid he served with. He says something like this (please note, this is NOT word for word):
"You know how there's always one kid in war movies--the friend of the hero, the kid who isn't supposed to die but does? And whenever he dies, you can always hear the bullet coming? There was a kid like that in my unit. And one day we were talking, and he fell over. A sniper's bullet got him. And the last thing he said before he died was, 'I never heard no bullet.'"
But the next time the choppers and the ambulances arrive, Tommy's on one of them. He's been shot. And the last thing he says to Hawkeye is that he heard the bullet coming before it hit him. Hawkeye, who's a wreck, tells Tommy that Sometimes You Hear the Bullet is a better title anyway. And he insists on operating on his friend, of course. I don't think there was a single person watching who doubted that Tommy would survive. Not when his friend was such a brilliant surgeon.
But instead, Tommy dies on the table. Hawkeye is determined to revive him. The nurse, who clearly knows what has happened and who knows that Hawkeye can't revive Tommy, doesn't move fast enough to suit Hawkeye--and that's when Henry Blake says four simple words that told us just how hopeless this was and how close Hawkeye was to losing it: "Pierce...go help McIntyre."
And if that wasn't enough to serve notice that this show wasn't going to be all slapstick humor at the front, we got this exchange between Hawkeye and Henry:
Hawkeye: Henry, I know why I'm crying now. Tommy was my friend, and I watched him die, and I'm crying. I've watched guys die almost every day. Why didn't I ever cry for them?
Henry Blake: Because you're a doctor.
Hawkeye: The hell does that mean?
Henry Blake: I don't know. If I had the answer, I'd be at the Mayo Clinic. Does this place look like the Mayo Clinic? Look, all I know is what they taught me at command school. There are certain rules about a war. And rule number one is young men die. And rule number two is--doctors can't change rule number one.
Hawkeye stares for a few minutes, then says, "Well, there's one young man I can keep from dying." And he storms into the recovery tent, walking up to the bed of an underage soldier (played by a very, very visibly young "Ronny" Howard) who joined up to impress his girlfriend. Hawkeye introduces a nurse to the boy:
Hawkeye: Nurse, I'd like you to meet Private Wendell Peterson. Only Wendell's name is really Walter and he's fifteen years old and he's going home.
Walter (realizing that Hawkeye broke his promise and that he, Walter, IS going to get sent home now that his age has become public knowledge): I'm never gonna forgive you for this! I'm gonna hate you for the rest of my life!
Hawkeye: Let's hope it's a long and healthy hate.
Wow.
Yeah. It hurt. It did. But... first off, the writers kept the humor. Frank Burns got tricked out of a Purple Heart he didn't deserve; Walter got it instead. And Tommy, when he was alive, was every bit as much a prankster as Hawkeye and Trapper. The humanity and humor remained...but we'd also just received notice that M*A*S*H was not going to prettify or trivialize or romanticize war. It was ugly, kids who were far too young for battle were fighting, and sometimes the wrong people died. And all this was being said during a war. This was revolutionary in 1973.
This was the point at which I knew this show was not going to be another Hogan's Heroes. This was something completely new.
Season 2: L.I.P. (Local Indigenous Personnel). First aired October 27, 1973.
This is an episode which was mostly comic but which veered into serious territory at the end. It starts off with Phil Walker, one of the enlisted men from the 4077th, asking Hawkeye to come outside and check on a patient--who turns out to be Walker's baby son. While Hawkeye is examining the colicky baby, Walker asks Hawkeye to help him get officially married to Kim, his Korean girlfriend and mother of the baby. He's being shipped home in a couple of weeks and he wants to take his family with him. This isn't exactly possible, thanks to considerable red tape and a very bigoted C.I.D. man who decided before he arrived that he was going to refuse to allow Phil and Kim to marry. Hawkeye and Trapper get the C.I.D. man thoroughly drunk and then blackmail him into signing the papers. All's well and all that--until Hawkeye goes on a date with a sexy nurse called Regina. Regina is less than enthralled with the notion of Phil marrying Kim. And we get this scene:
Regina: You fixed it so someone could marry a Korean? That's why you stood me up?
Hawkeye: Who stood you up? You don't see this adorable person sitting here, lips at the ready?
Regina: I just want to make sure I have all the facts, that's all.
Hawkeye: What is this, an interview for Stars and Stripes? Fact one: Phil loves Kim and Kim loves Phil. So much so they created fact two... a baby. Phil is being shipped home, and he wants to take his wife and baby with him. Pretty complicated, huh?
Regina: And so you had to arrange for a marriage between one of our guys and a [perjorative term].
Hawkeye (stares at her, as if unable to believe his ears): Kim is Korean.
Regina (explaining in a tone that says that this is trivial and he's an idiot): It's a matter of semantics.
Once Hawkeye realizes that yes, she really IS this bigoted, he tells her off.
Hawkeye: *pulls away from Regina*
Regina: What are you doing?
Hawkeye: I think I want my handshake back. You're built, Lieutenant. You...You've got a body I'd like to take a lifetime getting to know. And once I've learned it, I'd like to start at the top and go to the bottom again.But somewhere in that luscious chemistry are some pretty unappetizing ideas. I don't think I can take the mix. Good night, Lieutenant Hoffman. Make that good-bye, Lieutenant Hoffman.
I mention this because it was the first time I'd ever seen anyone tell off a bigot, on TV or in real life. More to the point, Regina wasn't actively doing anything against Phil and Kim the way the C.I.D. man was...but M*A*S*H showed that the quiet bigotry of ordinary people wasn't any less virulent, and, being hidden, could do damage far more easily than the overt kind. So yeah, that was a powerful episode.
Season 3: Big Mac. First aired February 25, 1975.
This can be summed up in four words: "MacArthur visits the 4077th." And if you've ever seen this episode, you KNOW what made it memorable. This:
That always makes me smile.
***
Day 1 - A show that never should have been canceled.
Day 2 - A show that you wish more people were watching (or that you wish more people had watched).
Day 3 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season).
Day 4 - Your favorite show ever.
Day 5 - A show you hate.
Day 6 - Favorite episode of your favorite TV show.
Day 7 - Least favorite episode of your favorite TV show.
Day 8 - A show everyone should watch.
Day 9 - Best scene ever.
Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving.
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you.
Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times.
This could be any episode of Star Trek: The Original Series or any episode of M*A*S*H, because I've seen every episode of both shows. I've already talked about Star Trek in answering another question, so I'm going to talk about M*A*S*H today. And in an effort to contain this somewhat, I'm going to pick an exceptional episode for each of the first three seasons. Why the first three? Because eleven episodes are too much to do in one post. And I'm not posting about my favorite episodes, necessarily--just the ones that, among all the others I saw for each season, stood out.
Season 1: Sometimes You Hear the Bullet. Originally aired January 28, 1973.
This was the seventeenth episode of the first season (yeah, TV seasons were longer back then). Up till then, the show had been comic in nature, mostly involving pranks by Hawkeye and Trapper John as well as people trying to relieve tension in a war zone. One episode that I love, "Tuttle," involved Hawkeye's imaginary childhood friend, with Hawk and Trapper creating an insane personnel file for Captain Jonathan S. Tuttle of Battle Creek, Michigan, donating all of Tuttle's back pay to a local orphanage, and being forced to kill him off in a way that wouldn't leave a corpse when Tuttle attracted the attention of the brass...who wanted to give him a medal. It was a very funny episode...
...which, two episodes later, was followed by the first episode in which the doctors lose a patient--and to make matters worse, it's Hawkeye's childhood friend Tommy.
Tommy Gillis, a journalist who's joined the infantry, shows up at the 4077th perfectly fine. He's just visiting his old friend. And he tells Hawkeye that he's writing a book about life at the front called You Never Hear the Bullet. He tells Hawkeye that the title comes from a kid he served with. He says something like this (please note, this is NOT word for word):
"You know how there's always one kid in war movies--the friend of the hero, the kid who isn't supposed to die but does? And whenever he dies, you can always hear the bullet coming? There was a kid like that in my unit. And one day we were talking, and he fell over. A sniper's bullet got him. And the last thing he said before he died was, 'I never heard no bullet.'"
But the next time the choppers and the ambulances arrive, Tommy's on one of them. He's been shot. And the last thing he says to Hawkeye is that he heard the bullet coming before it hit him. Hawkeye, who's a wreck, tells Tommy that Sometimes You Hear the Bullet is a better title anyway. And he insists on operating on his friend, of course. I don't think there was a single person watching who doubted that Tommy would survive. Not when his friend was such a brilliant surgeon.
But instead, Tommy dies on the table. Hawkeye is determined to revive him. The nurse, who clearly knows what has happened and who knows that Hawkeye can't revive Tommy, doesn't move fast enough to suit Hawkeye--and that's when Henry Blake says four simple words that told us just how hopeless this was and how close Hawkeye was to losing it: "Pierce...go help McIntyre."
And if that wasn't enough to serve notice that this show wasn't going to be all slapstick humor at the front, we got this exchange between Hawkeye and Henry:
Hawkeye: Henry, I know why I'm crying now. Tommy was my friend, and I watched him die, and I'm crying. I've watched guys die almost every day. Why didn't I ever cry for them?
Henry Blake: Because you're a doctor.
Hawkeye: The hell does that mean?
Henry Blake: I don't know. If I had the answer, I'd be at the Mayo Clinic. Does this place look like the Mayo Clinic? Look, all I know is what they taught me at command school. There are certain rules about a war. And rule number one is young men die. And rule number two is--doctors can't change rule number one.
Hawkeye stares for a few minutes, then says, "Well, there's one young man I can keep from dying." And he storms into the recovery tent, walking up to the bed of an underage soldier (played by a very, very visibly young "Ronny" Howard) who joined up to impress his girlfriend. Hawkeye introduces a nurse to the boy:
Hawkeye: Nurse, I'd like you to meet Private Wendell Peterson. Only Wendell's name is really Walter and he's fifteen years old and he's going home.
Walter (realizing that Hawkeye broke his promise and that he, Walter, IS going to get sent home now that his age has become public knowledge): I'm never gonna forgive you for this! I'm gonna hate you for the rest of my life!
Hawkeye: Let's hope it's a long and healthy hate.
Wow.
Yeah. It hurt. It did. But... first off, the writers kept the humor. Frank Burns got tricked out of a Purple Heart he didn't deserve; Walter got it instead. And Tommy, when he was alive, was every bit as much a prankster as Hawkeye and Trapper. The humanity and humor remained...but we'd also just received notice that M*A*S*H was not going to prettify or trivialize or romanticize war. It was ugly, kids who were far too young for battle were fighting, and sometimes the wrong people died. And all this was being said during a war. This was revolutionary in 1973.
This was the point at which I knew this show was not going to be another Hogan's Heroes. This was something completely new.
Season 2: L.I.P. (Local Indigenous Personnel). First aired October 27, 1973.
This is an episode which was mostly comic but which veered into serious territory at the end. It starts off with Phil Walker, one of the enlisted men from the 4077th, asking Hawkeye to come outside and check on a patient--who turns out to be Walker's baby son. While Hawkeye is examining the colicky baby, Walker asks Hawkeye to help him get officially married to Kim, his Korean girlfriend and mother of the baby. He's being shipped home in a couple of weeks and he wants to take his family with him. This isn't exactly possible, thanks to considerable red tape and a very bigoted C.I.D. man who decided before he arrived that he was going to refuse to allow Phil and Kim to marry. Hawkeye and Trapper get the C.I.D. man thoroughly drunk and then blackmail him into signing the papers. All's well and all that--until Hawkeye goes on a date with a sexy nurse called Regina. Regina is less than enthralled with the notion of Phil marrying Kim. And we get this scene:
Regina: You fixed it so someone could marry a Korean? That's why you stood me up?
Hawkeye: Who stood you up? You don't see this adorable person sitting here, lips at the ready?
Regina: I just want to make sure I have all the facts, that's all.
Hawkeye: What is this, an interview for Stars and Stripes? Fact one: Phil loves Kim and Kim loves Phil. So much so they created fact two... a baby. Phil is being shipped home, and he wants to take his wife and baby with him. Pretty complicated, huh?
Regina: And so you had to arrange for a marriage between one of our guys and a [perjorative term].
Hawkeye (stares at her, as if unable to believe his ears): Kim is Korean.
Regina (explaining in a tone that says that this is trivial and he's an idiot): It's a matter of semantics.
Once Hawkeye realizes that yes, she really IS this bigoted, he tells her off.
Hawkeye: *pulls away from Regina*
Regina: What are you doing?
Hawkeye: I think I want my handshake back. You're built, Lieutenant. You...You've got a body I'd like to take a lifetime getting to know. And once I've learned it, I'd like to start at the top and go to the bottom again.But somewhere in that luscious chemistry are some pretty unappetizing ideas. I don't think I can take the mix. Good night, Lieutenant Hoffman. Make that good-bye, Lieutenant Hoffman.
I mention this because it was the first time I'd ever seen anyone tell off a bigot, on TV or in real life. More to the point, Regina wasn't actively doing anything against Phil and Kim the way the C.I.D. man was...but M*A*S*H showed that the quiet bigotry of ordinary people wasn't any less virulent, and, being hidden, could do damage far more easily than the overt kind. So yeah, that was a powerful episode.
Season 3: Big Mac. First aired February 25, 1975.
This can be summed up in four words: "MacArthur visits the 4077th." And if you've ever seen this episode, you KNOW what made it memorable. This:
That always makes me smile.
***
Day 1 - A show that never should have been canceled.
Day 2 - A show that you wish more people were watching (or that you wish more people had watched).
Day 3 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season).
Day 4 - Your favorite show ever.
Day 5 - A show you hate.
Day 6 - Favorite episode of your favorite TV show.
Day 7 - Least favorite episode of your favorite TV show.
Day 8 - A show everyone should watch.
Day 9 - Best scene ever.
Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving.
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you.
Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times.