M*A*S*H is now on Netflix!

[Tama]

First five seasons.

God, I forgot what an utter turd Frank is! And Hot Lips, but at least she improves.

[lordlundar]

Heh, I still have the DVD box set that I borrowed from my Dad after giving it to him for his birthday several years ago. It is the complete collection with the movie, all the seasons and the finale.

[Gilhelmi]

I got lucky and found all 11 seasons on DVD for only $80.

Then I marathon them, I should do that again in the spring.

[Sapphire Silk]

I had the first 3 seasons on VHS, but I can't bring myself to watch VHS anymore so I got rid of them. They're not my favorite seasons anyway.

Hot Lips is pretty true to the movie and the book in the first couple of seasons, but after they wrote McLean Stevenson out, they finally started letting her character have some personal growth, and she became one of the most interesting characters on the show.

[Tama]

I can definitely agree there. She's just an utter bitch with Frank around. I read that even Frank's actor felt the character was going nowhere, no chance for growth, and that's why he left.

Kinda glad he did, Hot Lips grew as a person, and we got Winchester. Excuse me, Charles Emerson Winchester III.

[Sapphire Silk]

Yes, that's why Linville left.

And honestly, Frank Burns was fairly one dimensional in both the book and the movie as well.

I liked Charles. He could give as good as he got, which made him MUCH more entertaining than Frank Burns ever was, and he actually did have some compassion which made him so much more human than Burns.

[gremcint]

Charles Emerson Winchester III.

a man of high calibre

[Gilhelmi]

Maj. Burns was not horrible in the first couple seasons. He reminded me of a couple real-life NCOs.

But then they wrote Maj. Burns like he was having a mental breakdown. It was not pleasant to watch.

Maj. Houlahan (sp?) was always a good character (after season 3). A resident I worked with (at a nursing home) reminded me of her. She had many good stories about her time as an Army nurse (and served on every continent in the world).

Major Charles Emerson Winchester, the 3rd and Col. Sherman Potter were both much better characters then their originals.

[gremcint]

a story I heard once: the day after henry blake's death on the show the actor was on a talk show and filmed a small scene of his character in a boat yelling "I'm ok"

[lordlundar]

A lot of the reason why Henry Blake and Frank Burns ("Trapper" John McEntyre as well) were so one-dimensional was largely because Alan Alda wanted to keep them true to the movie. The problem is the movie never really did anything with them and so any development really boiled down to a breaking of character for each of them. Henry Blake was always going to be the frazzled commander who didn't really know what was going on and Frank Burns was always going to be "ferret face" with a personality to mach because there wasn't anything else to go with. It got so bad that even the actors said essentially "eff it" and left. Then with the replacements in Mr. Alda felt he didn't have to follow the movie concept so he ran with it, gave the characters more depth than their predecessors and worked with that.