The groundbreaking television sitcom version of "M*A*S*H" may have been centered on the Korean War, but it famously ran for 11 years, over three times as long as the war. Like a lot of series, the length of its run led to significant tonal shifts as writers and actors left the show and new creatives came on. In particular, "M*A*S*H" went from an acidic, satirical portrait of military cynicism at a mobile surgical unit (the 4077th) to a much more earnestly anti-war show.
You can trace a lot of those changes in the ways the series' characters changed and developed. In the first half of the show, most of the folk who work at the 4077th are either bureaucratic blowhards like Majors Frank Burns (Larry Linville) and Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Loretta Swit) or nihilistic, hedonist heroes like "Hawkeye" Pierce (Alan Alda). Surrounded by war and death, the characters had extremes to lean into,...
You can trace a lot of those changes in the ways the series' characters changed and developed. In the first half of the show, most of the folk who work at the 4077th are either bureaucratic blowhards like Majors Frank Burns (Larry Linville) and Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Loretta Swit) or nihilistic, hedonist heroes like "Hawkeye" Pierce (Alan Alda). Surrounded by war and death, the characters had extremes to lean into,...
- 1/22/2024
- by Anthony Crislip
- Slash Film
Once you've seen all of "M*A*S*H," it can be tough to rewatch some earlier season episodes. The Korean War-set sitcom was heartfelt and inspired from its first season to its last, but the earlier seasons also prominently featured some kinks the show would later work out. The worst of them? The initially one-note writing of Nurse Margaret Houlihan (Loretta Swit), whose nickname Hot Lips is a good indicator of how the show felt about her early on.
In the show's early days, Margaret alternated between appearing to be a shrill stick in the mud and an amorous "other woman" for sniveling jerk Frank Burns (Larry Linville). When she was subjected to sexual harassment at the hands of our heroes, she was the butt of the joke for taking it too personally, and audiences never got much sense of her inner self. As the series began establishing its...
In the show's early days, Margaret alternated between appearing to be a shrill stick in the mud and an amorous "other woman" for sniveling jerk Frank Burns (Larry Linville). When she was subjected to sexual harassment at the hands of our heroes, she was the butt of the joke for taking it too personally, and audiences never got much sense of her inner self. As the series began establishing its...
- 10/15/2023
- by Valerie Ettenhofer
- Slash Film
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