After an extensive period in surgery, Hawkeye goes to bed. Soon, he rises and goes out the door. He is sleepwalking, thinking he is playing basketball. This becomes chronic as once again, the next night, he is playing marbles and acting like a child. He is also having horrific nightmares where his childhood friends are meeting tragic ends. It turns out they are fine and he tries to figure out what is going on. This is another chance for my favorite character, Sidney Freedman, to come in and check things out. There is so much written about what sleep does for the human species, especially sleep deprivation. Hawkeye is fighting a battle against his own demons and the physiological consequences of no sleep. This is a really interesting episode. There will be a couple more in the future where Hawkeye must deal with the subconscious.
4 Reviews
I think this episode is one of the better...
billey-114 November 2006
The rating for this episode seems a bit to low from my point of wiew. I must say just love the episodes with Sidney in... The humble anti-war stuff gives me a feeling of hope for humanity. When Alan Alda/Hawkeye Pierce lets go of all his giggle-making antics and changes over to seriousness the entire series of M*A*S*H turns into it's absolutely best - a critical wiewpoint on life as it is and war as it has to be. Or, has it? Sidney, I feel, is the perfect condensator for Hawkeye's and the other characters feeling of disbelieve in the idea of war. Thus, they - as being doctors and not soldiers - have their out-of-battle wiew of the Korean war , he -as their shrink - has a wiew even further out, as a wiewer of their inner thoughts.
Insanity of War
bjwise82-742-9614795 October 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Hawkeye starts to crack, at least a bit, under the pressure. The stress manifests itself as sleepwalking and horrible dreams that end with childhood friends dying...like the young soldiers he treats.
This episode is an early demonstration of the strain that war puts on the people involved, and it really shows what makes Hawkeye appealing as a character. It's human nature to, after a while, accept horrible circumstances as the new normal. But there's something about Hawkeye. As Sidney says, "Actually, Hawkeye, you're probably the sanest person I've ever known. The fact is, if you were crazy, you'd sleep like a baby." There's something he carries within himself. Something that says "This, what's going on around me, is NOT normal. This is insane. Something very wrong is happening here." But it's this refusal to bend and accept what's going on that puts the cracks in his sanity, and this is something we see all the way to the last episode, when he sees something he can't deal with. This episode really lays the groundwork for the increasingly serious tone of the show.
This episode is an early demonstration of the strain that war puts on the people involved, and it really shows what makes Hawkeye appealing as a character. It's human nature to, after a while, accept horrible circumstances as the new normal. But there's something about Hawkeye. As Sidney says, "Actually, Hawkeye, you're probably the sanest person I've ever known. The fact is, if you were crazy, you'd sleep like a baby." There's something he carries within himself. Something that says "This, what's going on around me, is NOT normal. This is insane. Something very wrong is happening here." But it's this refusal to bend and accept what's going on that puts the cracks in his sanity, and this is something we see all the way to the last episode, when he sees something he can't deal with. This episode really lays the groundwork for the increasingly serious tone of the show.
A game changing episode of M*A*S*H
safenoe31 August 2020
This episode was screened just days before Christmas 1976. No yuletide cheer, but rather the realities of war, that presaged Hawkeye's infamous breakdown in Goodbye, Farewell and Amen. It's hard to imagine this episode being run with Blake and Trapper John.
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