Rating: 
Summary: Fond Farewell to Ferrett Face! Welcome Play All
Review: Alas Play All is here! This is the best addition to the M*A*S*H DVD series.
This season was Larry Linville's last as Maj. Frank Burns. Maj Burns was a wonderful character, but I think the series would have suffered had he stayed throughout the run of the series. You could only go so far and play so many practical jokes on this type of character. Kudos to Larry Lineville for recognizing this.
For the episodes themselves, M*A*S*H has never been better, more convenient, and funnier (thanks to long edited scenes rarely seen in syndicated TV)! It's almost like seeing it for the first time. I was surprised to notice that many episodes had close to five (5) minutes edited out in Syndication.
One allure of DVD's, in addition to the Sound and Picture Quality, are the "Extras". Other than the ability to take out the laugh tracks (Yes!), this has none. There are no cast interviews, no bloopers, no Director's/Producers/Writers Commentary, not even Cast Biographies. Even the insert is rather plan and has nothing extra to it. The episode description look as though they were written by some one who hadn't even watched the show. I was hoping for more when the DVD's came out. This is not complete in the DVD's fullest sense...the extras we've all come to expect in them. In that respect I am disappointed. But I am not disappointed in having a whole season on only 3 DVD's! I am not disappointed in the quality of the sound and picture (much better than the Video's from Columbia House and the Broadcast versions).
My only other complaint is with their painfully slow release schedule of only two seasons per year. At this rate, it's going to be the end of 2006 before the whole series is available.
Rating:
Summary: Margaret's engagement and marriage book-end this season.
Review: Aside from the first episode this season, Bug-Out, this year is dominated by the sudden shocking engangement of Margaret to Donald Penobscott. This is also the final year for Frank Burns.
Bug-Out - Radar and Klinger are talking in the office with Klinger celebrating his new cigars when the phone rings. There's a rumor of a camp bug-out. Word spreads fast. Meanwhile, the latrine digging stops and Hawkeye worries over a delicate surgery in which the patient can't me moved for 24 hours due to possible paralysis. Potter makes a phone call and finds it's just a rumor.
Hawkeye and Margaret start the surgery, with B.J's assistance. Then, after calling assembly to stop the rumors Potter finds out that there is a full out bug-out happening. Radar runs in and tells Hawkeye, but it's too late. Hawkeye, Margaret and Radar stay behind to watch the patient. Meanwhile, the rest of the camp finds a damaged old school house which doulbes as a brothel. They trade Klinger's dresses for the building. Hawkeye and Radar go to Rosie's for one last drink before leaving themselves. They get into a jeep, but it breaks down. Suddenly there's the sound of a large number of vehicles. It's the rest of the camp returning.
Margaret's Engagement - Margaret returns from a conference in Tokyo with news of her sudden engagement. This drives Frank over the top. He brings in a family, suspecting that they are snipers. He stays up all night, rifle in hand, with an itchy trigger finger. Potter says he's heading to a section eight. "Section Eight, Section Eight," Frank yells jumping to action. Everyone reacts. Radar tells him there's a phone call. He called Frank's mom. The final scene shows Margaret talking about Donald Penobscott. Frank tells Hawkeye that he wants to double date. He mentions a young new nurse with freckles. Margaret says that she's a bit young."I don't know. I thought a little youth might be nice for a change!". Margaret leaves in a huff, B.J and Hawkeye both shake their heads. "I really got her on that one didn't I!", is Franks responce. This gets good laughter our of the three of them.
Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind - An act of kindness in trying to fix the nurses tent stoves leave Hawkeye blind. Frank litens to a game at night, and then bets eveyone on the outcome for the replay. Hawkeye does some soul searching with another blind patient. Klinger gives him a kazoo to get people attention. In the end he gets his sight back, but not before getting revenge on Frank. He does the play by play of a fake game, with the assistance of Radar, Klinger, and B.J. When the patches are taken off and Hawkeye finds the blindness over, the real score of the game is announced over the radio. Eveyone chases Frank seeking resitution.
The Nurses - A nurse gets into hot water with Margaret. This happens just before her husband, who she rarely sees, comes to camp. B.J and Hawkeye conspire to get them together. They come up with a bogus disease and place the husband in Margaret's tent. The two spend the night together, but he's caught by Margaret. When she tells her who the man is, Margaret relents. When Potter confronts everyone on the miraculous cure Margaret syas it's a private matter between her and her nurses.
Dear Sigmund - Sydney comes to the Swamp for the usual poker game. He ends up staying for two weeks due to stress from work. Hawkeye and B.J find that he's been writing Dr. Sigmund Freud. Sydney rights about the antics of the camp. The barage or practical jokes, including shoe polish on binocular lenses which puts rings around Potter's eyes. Radar falls out of the jeep he's laughing so hard. A mess tent bench with one leg half sawed off. As soon as Frank sits down the bench collapses, sending him to the floor. He tells of his view of each of the main characters.
Mulcahy's War - A patient is brought in with a self inflicted foot wound. Hawkeye sends Father Mulcahy in to talk to him. Turns out they both know the same pastor at a church in Philadelphia. The patient though won't talk to Mulcahy because the good Father has no idea what it's like. Father Mulcahy heads to the front with Radar. They end up saving a patients life on the road back. The patient hears about it and ends up talking to the good Father.
The Colonel's Horse - Potter gets a week of R&R for a second honeymoon with his wife. While he's gone his mare gets sick. B.J calls his father in law to get help. Meanwhile Margaret gets appendicitis and requests Hawkeye's help. Both girls turn out fine.
Hawk's Nightmare - Hawkeye suffers through several bad dreams and some bouts of sleepwalking. Sydney is called in. Sydney figures that the problem is just the war and that it will pass. In the end Hawkeye and Sydney play a mean game of zombie basketball.
End Run - Radar discovers that one of his hero's, a college football player from Iowa, is brought in a stretcher. The player ends up losing a leg and figures that his life is over. Radar comes to the rescue. He shows him a magazine of the game and how much he loved listening to the game. Radar helps the player see that he has more to live for.
Hepatitis - A bought of hepatitis sidelines Father Mulcahy, and Hawkeye get upset over an average surgeon in his home town. Hawkeye goes around the camp, with a bad back. He helps Margaret see more eye to eye with her mother-in-law who's not too happy with her. He also puts up with a paranoid Frank. Klinger is agitated after being put on report for fighting with Zale. He fights him all the way through the exam. B.J is reading up to perform delicate surgery. Hawkeye finally gets the entire camp examined and Potter helps him see that the average surgeon in Maine has nothing on him.
Movie Night - A lack of mail, little sleep mean low morale. Potter winds up a movie. The movie though has many splices and keeps breaking. The have a Father Mulcahy sound-alike contest and a sing-along. They sing "Army Camp" "The Surgeons in Army Camp..." and so on.
Margaret's Marriage - This is the final episode this year. At Frank's urging Donald Penobscott comes to the camp to get married to Margaret. Frank, thinking he was going to die, runs as soon as he realized that it was Mr. Penobscott. Donald catches him and asks him to be the best man. The women hold a bridal shower where she gets gifts like a back scracher. Klinger shows up in a bright dress. Margaret says that it's for ladies only. Klinger, however, gives her a wedding dress to wear. The men hold a bachelor party where everyone gets real drunk, including Radar. As a kicker they really get Donald plastered, from his chest to his toes. The wedding goes on as planned but it interupted by incoming wounded. Donald, wearing a full body cast, is left behind and falls down.
Rating:
Summary: Was there anything better?
Review: At the same time, Robert Altman's "M*A"S*H" came out. It, too found an audience, and truth be told many who enjoyed "Patton" enjoyed "M*A*S*H". It was just plain funny, and the anti-military theme was subtle. Altman walked a brilliant tightrope between a pro-American and unpatriotic premise. There is no doubt that Altman intended it as an anti-Vietnam movie. It was written by former Communist Ring Lardner, Jr. Lardner had been Blacklisted, and this fact featured prominently in the politics of the film's aura. It was based on a sexy paperback novel about surgeons in Korea. The film was set in Korea, yet made every possible attempt to convey the image that it was actually Vietnam. Many of the movie's set pieces were deliberately Vietnamese in nature and costume, for that very purpose. To the extent that it was unpatriotic, it subtly described "regular Army" officers as unyielding, intolerant Christians, utterly blinded by stupid jingoism. The draftees, however, are funny and attractive as they drink and love their way through a bevy of good-looking nurses, all while saving lives in the style of comic Galahads. Altman showed genius as a filmmaker. The movie avoided real controversy because it was just so darn good.
"M*A*S*H" spurred a television show that ran for years. In the 1970s it played for its time and audience. Re-runs, however, strain its credibility beyond Altman's original themes. Two doctors played the "bad guy." The first was a complete buffoon. Frank Burns was prominently identified as a Republican. He is given zero good qualities. He is ugly, a bad doctor, a coward, a racist and all-around mean SOB who cheats on his wife with Major Margaret Hoolihan, who at least is given some character. She is half-Vixen, half-Fascist, naturally Republican, a patriotic American in the "worst way," who worships the idols of war. Over the years the writers gave Margaret a little development. Very little. Burns was replaced by Major Charles Emerson Winchester, a Boston Brahmin, naturally a Republican whose father "knows Truman. He doesn't like him, but he knows him." Winchester, like Hoolihan, is allowed a touch of humanity when the liberal writers felt charitable, but generally was available for all possible bashing. Two hero-doctors anchor the show by showing their intelligence, medical skills and tolerance as direct contrasts to the war effort. The CIA is lampooned, and a military effort that in reality featured MacArthur's Inchon campaign, perhaps the most brilliant invasion in history, is also played as foolish. In the end, the TV show and the film avoid being really and actually unpatriotic because they do feature an emphasis on the basic goodness of the American spirit under stress, but you will not catch me tuned in to those old re-runs(...)
Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Year
Review: By the autumn of 1976, MASH was beginning it's fifth season, the one where Margaret gets engaged, the last one with Frank. It was also that autumn that I celebrated my 10th birthday, and my parents decided I was finally old enough to watch MASH and other adult tv shows. (How things have changed since those days). I had seen some of the last reruns of the fourth season during the summer of '76, but season 5 was the first season I actually watched regularly. In 1976, the war in Korea had only been over for 23 years, and 1976 was much closer in time to the actual events in Korea than we are today to this particular season of the tv show MASH. That's an odd thought.Perhaps because it was the first season I got to watch in full, I remember season 5 as THE season. It remains my favorite season, and that year's season premiere, The Bug-out, is still my favorite episode of the entire series. There are other reasons than my own nostalgia for this to be one of the best seasons -- some really classic episodes like "Movie Tonight" just to name one, some poignant moments, a lack of the "preachiness" that plagues the final 3 or 4 seasons. BJ was still a likable punster and practical joker instead of the grouch he later became, whereas Margaret stopped being so uptight as before. Seasons 5 and 6, in my opion were the peak years, in terms of humor balanced by pathos.
Rating:
Summary: Was there anything better?
Review: Dude if you would like to experince some of the best humor ever. Notice the experince part. Buy this DVD set. The packaging may not be all that great but who cares? Your getting to relive those classic M*A*S*H episodes all over again. And this time you can watch them when ever you want. Anyways. Best episode on here has to be " Movie Tonight". Its just so funny. Well hope you enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: At last! They finally included a "play all" option!
Review: I am collecting the M*A*S*H series DVDs as they come out (I've got seasons 1-5 so far) and am happy to see that, with the release of Season Five, there is finally a "play all" option. Why it took so long for the production people to get around to including this, I'll never know. But it certainly is nice to be able to watch such favorite episodes as "Dear Sigmund", "Movie Tonight," etc. without having to reach for the remote each time. This is the last season to feature Frank Burns. Season Six will open with the arrival of Charles Emerson Winchester, one of my favorite M*A*S*H characters. Frank Burns is funny, but, once Margaret gets engaged to Donald Penobscott, the Burns character becomes over-strained and tiresome. Perhaps that's why, even though I dearly love all of M*A*S*H, this season seems to go into a slump about halfway through. Looking forward to Season Six...
Rating:
Summary: At last! They finally included a "play all" option!
Review: I am collecting the M*A*S*H series DVDs as they come out (I've got seasons 1-5 so far) and am happy to see that, with the release of Season Five, there is finally a "play all" option. Why it took so long for the production people to get around to including this, I'll never know. But it certainly is nice to be able to watch such favorite episodes as "Dear Sigmund", "Movie Tonight," etc. without having to reach for the remote each time. This is the last season to feature Frank Burns. Season Six will open with the arrival of Charles Emerson Winchester, one of my favorite M*A*S*H characters. Frank Burns is funny, but, once Margaret gets engaged to Donald Penobscott, the Burns character becomes over-strained and tiresome. Perhaps that's why, even though I dearly love all of M*A*S*H, this season seems to go into a slump about halfway through. Looking forward to Season Six...
Rating:
Summary: The Funny Farm meets A Few Good Men
Review: I cannot get enough of the laughs in this series. There are a few variances but nothing serious. These people can really grow on an audience with their snapiness, their distaste for death, and their willingness to go the whole nine yards just to save lives while performing in a three ring circus. And to make things better, on the last episode of disk 3, it is the last time we see or hear of Ferret Face. That's more than enough reason to buy this DVD set along with the others.
Rating:
Summary: Classic TV show
Review: I grew up watching M*A*S*H and I still love it. When there is nothing else worth watching on TV, my husband will put it in and watch it. It is definitely worth having in your DVD collection.
Rating:
Summary: Best series ever!
Review: I love the humor in M*A*S*H, I watch this all the time with my dad and we have all the DVD sets, I want to get this one for him for Christmas, to everyone out there, this DVD set would make a great Christmas gift to any fan of M*A*S*H.
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