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Join Date: Jan 09, 2001
Posts: 124,453
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https://web.archive.org/web/20070225...ptheshark.com/
- Other Thoughts:
What a stupid show. Can't producers leave old shows alone? It makes me sick that no talent actors keep rechurning their careers. To bring back Mash is stupid.
The fact that Jamie Farr who DID elaborate on virtually all his television appearance including game shows and Mars Bars commercials in his autobiography but did not say a WORD about 'After M*A*S*H' is a good indication that this is best simply forgotten! IMO it would have been better if they had a TV reunion movie to wrap up the characters!
It was on for such a short time, but it should have never made it. Like M*A*S*H* it jumped when BJ grew the mustache.
Oh please. DAY ONE.It was bad enough that the original lasted longer than it should have. Did the cast love the show that much or did they need the money? As a fan of M.A.S.H., I found it insulting that they would put this piece of television embarrassment on. The '80's were the beginning of lousy t.v. and this show was one of the reasons. It ranks right up there with Sherrif Lobo,Enos,and Archie Bunker's Place as the worst spinoffs in history.
An episode where the lead handsome doctor, disgusted that an obnoxious patient is taking up valuable bad space, pulls a Hawkeye-like stunt, only to have Potter berate him and saying he would be stripped of his medical license.
One of the worst concepts in TV history.
This show was a bad idea from the word "go." Its predecessor had already been on four times longer than the actual war--what more could it give viewers? Alan Alda once said you can't take the drama of M*A*S*H and transpose it to a civilian emergency room--there's just something about the ever-present danger of war that has no equal in drama. The people who birthed this stillborn sitcom should have read the article first. For the purposes of this site, however, if there is one clear-cut moment when this show jumped the shark, it would be when Klinger, his wife and new baby lost their home and moved in with the Potters. What?? And don't forget when Klinger ran into some sort of legal trouble and feigned insanity to be hospitalized rather than jailed. (A very weak, obvious attempt to get Klinger to return to his "pretending to be crazy" shtick). We can all be glad this died a quick death.
This show was awful from the start. They would have been better off basing a series on the actual sequel to the book M*A*S*H, called "M*A*S*H Goes To Maine." There, the original Swamp crew get together to run a clinic in Maine. They could have cast the same characters but with different actors (a la "Trapper John, M.D."). Instead, we got a series based on peripheral side characters--Potter, Klinger, and Mulcahy (Radar wasn't in this, was he?) A waste. Actually, now that no one from the TV show has any real career going, maybe they can do this with Alda, Rogers, etc., like those Apple ads in the early 1990s.
"After M*A*S*H" I suspect was the cast and crew going through withdrawal symptoms from "M*A*S*H". They hoped to capitalize on viewers who were going through similar withdrawal pains. But if there were any such viewers, their pains were quickly cured with this disaster!
Much like NBC hoped for Seinfeld, CBS wanted M*A*S*H to run forever (or at least until the ratings died). During its 10th season, the cast took a vote on whether or not the 11th would be their last. All but three voted to call it quits. Guess which three. AfterM*A*S*H fizzled from day one as an ill-conceived desperation play to maintain the original's audience and provide three supporting players with a steady salary. There was no other point to this series, either comedic or dramatic. Even the producers conning Gary Burghoff into guest starring couldn't save it. Not until The Bradys would there be another coldly calculated failure this embarrassing.
The best laugh this show ever gave me was how the writers desperately tried to mention the beloved "Hawkeye" in every episode. Potter is on the phone "Good hearing from you Hawkeye." Klinger writing a note to Hawkeye. Had they worked Sherman T. Potter giving Mildred a beat down into an episode maybe it would've survived.
The sitcom that took away the "com" from "sitcom" comes back this time taking away the "sit" too. Nuff said.
Since M*A*S*H* itself ran about 6 years longer than it should have, this show definitely jumped on day one. I remember reading that the cast of the original program took a vote before that show's final season: Alan Alda, Mike Farrell, Loretta Swit, and David Ogden Stiers voted to end the show. Harry Morgan, William Christopher, and Jamie Farr voted to continue. As a result, "After M*A*S*H*" was created as a vehicle for those who wanted to continue. It should have been titled "Beating a Dead Horse". One other note: I once saw a pilot for a program called "Radar", in which Gary Burghoff's character moves from Iowa to St. Louis, where he becomes a Policeman. If you thought "After M*A*S*H*" was bad, just be thankful that they didn't give the green light to "Radar"!
A poor idea from the start. It might have worked if they had taken a page from "Lou Grant", and placed the Sherman Potter character in a completely different setting with a fine supporting cast and heavy on the drama rather than comedy (Perhaps a "West Wing" type show set in the Pentagon during the Kennedy Administration with Potter now a General), but this lame vehicle was dead from the start.
I worked in a military hospital (William Beaumont Army Medical Center, Ft. Bliss TX) and when an old episode of M*A*S*H* would come on, well, it was time to do paperwork in the breakroom in order to watch, or just take a break, anything to watch M*A*S*H* In fact, I recall one time when M*A*S*H* was on television, during the beginning when the chopper lands with the big red cross, and right then--eleven stories below, on the landing pad--I saw one of our own medical helicopters land. Such a cool moment that was. Of course, if there had ever been a moment when an episode of After M*A*S*H* was being played...and I doubt if this one will *ever* make the reruns...I can imagine what the reaction would have been. "Oh, gee, there's a bedpan needing emptying...and I really must go drain that infected sore!" M*A*S*H* was the baby and After M*A*S*H* was the afterbirth. Not a nice image, but I believe this old army medic has made his point. As I did in my review of Battlestar Galactica, I propose a show which depict actual legal proceedings (court martial or hospital review board in this case) within the messed up imaginary world for the producers who do these awful, awful things to good shows, with all relevant evidence and excuses presented, and punishment within that imaginary world. Galactica 1980 and After M*A*S*H* are two of the clearest shark jump examples, ever ever. You would be hard pressed to find better. I say find the sleazy Hollywood wrongdoers and punish, punish, punish.
One of the chief problems with this show was the casting. The only members of the cast (past or present) that wanted to be on it were Jamie Farr, Harry Morgan, and William Christopher. That is, the two characters least fit to have a series centered around them (Klinger and Mulcahy) and a character whose best traits require a Hawkeye (Potter). Nothing helped, not even Colonel Flagg's appearance (as Flagg's last appearance on M*A*S*H showed, the character is useless without a Burns whom actually believes in him.) BTW, what happened to Father Mulcahy's deafness and the search for Klinger's wife's parents?
Dumb idea; tragic waste of the human spirit. By the way, I believe the Gary Burghoff spin-off was called "Walter," not "Radar" as one previous poster said. I think CBS just aired the pilot episode as a Summer replacement, back in the days when sitcoms ran repeat free from Labor Day to Memorial Day and the Summer was filled with reruns and awful pilot episodes. I do remember the first scene - Radar/Walter is being interviewed by a TV journalist doing a veterans return home kind of thing on the 4077th. Like "After M*A*S*H," they work in the obligatory "Last week we spoke to Dr. Hawkeye Pierce" reference. Radar also got married and lost his virginity on his wedding night. I do remember him being a cop, though. I also think he was an incompetent cop that got his wallet stolen by a pickpocket while in uniform. I need a life.
Pretty amazingly TERRIBLE show considering some of the talent behind the scenes...the famous team of Ken Levine and David Isaacs [CHEERS,FRASIER,WINGS....even a nice season or two of M*A*S*H] were actually producers of this piece of garbage...Levine has since admitted it was an idiotic decision to leave CHEERS for this tripe!
Jumped when someone thought of it. A case where well enough should have been left alone. Klinger, Father Mulcahy, & Colonel Potter show up in a VA hospital stateside. Only lasted a few episodes, and deservedly so. Tarnishes the memory of the original like a "Jaws" sequel.
Jumped the shark from day one. I didn't have any problem with showing the characters live's after the war ended. May I remind you all that that is what they essential did with "Trapper John?" And think Best Years of Our Lives as another example. The problem with the show was the execution. First of all, there was the casting. Harry Morgan is one thing, but William Christopher and Jamie Farr are support, not stars. If the show has focused on, say, Potter, B.J. and Klinger, or Potter, Hawkeye and Father Mulcahy, that would have been fine. Secondly, they didn't do anything interest with the premise. The three wind up together to work at a VA hospital. So what? Why not focus on a different character each week, e.g. Hotlips one week, Charles the next, Potter the next. The constant rotation would have kept the show from becoming dull. Even Frank Burns could have been included.
As many have mentioned many times already, the fact that the once great M*A*S*H had gone sour many years before was a bad sign already. I just can't imagine what was going through the minds of the idiots who decided to go ahead and make a series based on the three most uninteresting characters M*A*S*H had. No offense to Harry Morgan, by the way. Great actor, horrible writers.
This train wreck of a show never should have been put in the lineup. This might have worked as a dream sequence of M*A*S*H*, but it would have needed a lot of work. I don't think the producers quite knew what they wanted this show to be -- comedy? drama? nostalgia? This show makes Cop Rock, My Mother the Car, and even Hello Larry seem like the Golden Age of Television by comparison.
Like in the original show, Radar was summoned to help fix a problem that Col. Potter and Klinger couldn't fix...low ratings. Sure, it did good for that episode but the next week it was back on the bottom. The concept of this show would've been a good idea a few years after the show ended as a reunion movie. Rosalind Chao was a hottie though. Too bad her career didn't go anywhere after that.
The original series went on 3 times longer than the Korean War. The original made the movie and the book inconsequential. But the original series did tie up all the loose ends by ending the war and sending everyone home. It made a big point of showing all the regulars leave the camp via different modes of transportation. It was over. There was no need for this. And Klinger names his baby after a baseball player: Si Yung. Give me a break.
First of all, it started jumping during the first season when Wendy Schaal disappeared (like she disappeared from It's A Living. Why did she do things like that? She was such a doll and I loved watching her). I liked the idea of her character lusting after Klinger even with the knowledge that he was happily married to Soon-Lee. Made for some interesting conflicts. Then they "did the Darrin" and replaced Barbara Townshend with somebody else to play Potter's wife. The replacement just couldn't cut it (and why did Sherm keep calling her "Mother?") Then Klinger and Soon-Lee couldn't even come up with a name for their baby. What was up with that?? One good thing was the introduction of the oily Wally Wainwright. He was a great villain for the show.
This show was doomed from the beginning. M*A*S*H was so great the first few years that it was difficult to watch it's slow painful death. I was grateful when it was finally over and then this trash came on. Mulcahy and Klinger were great on M*A*S*H as occasional players and never should have been added to the credits. How did anyone imagine them actually carrying a show of their own. I can see how the actors would have been desperate, but Harry Morgan should have known better. I was always intrigued by the interaction between Margaret and BJ. Once Hot Lips softened, it seemed like these two could become genuine friends. A more interesting show would have been BJ back in Mill Valley running his office and Margaret working for him
Inasmuch as "M*A*S*H" is the exception rather than the rule when it comes to changes that doomed other shows, so too is "After M*A*S*H" when it comes to elements of successful spinoffs. "M*A*S*H" was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing that should have been left to stand alone. Classic case of getting there vs. being there. Without the Korean War to rail against, the main characters were no longer longing for home or pulling fantastic gags on one another to maintain their senses of humor. But let's not be too hard on the producers. I understand how difficult it was to say goodbye. I've cried every single time I've watched the final episode of "M*A*S*H," even these many years later. "After M*A*S*H" was simply the manifestation of not wanting to let go: a testament to just how beloved the men and women of the 4077th are... still!
AfterM*A*S*H jumped the shark on the very first episode. It was a lame attempt to keep M*A*S*H alive. To my knowledge, the show lasted a season and a half. I was surprised it was renewed for a second season. The only two episodes worth watching were when Radar was brought back and he got married. I was so hoping he would get a show of his own. On W*A*L*T*E*R, his wife left him a "Dear John" note saying that she went back to her ex boyfriend. I wanted to beat her up for that. LOL.
The show failed the second we saw what Mrs. Potter looked like -- no matter how attractive/unattractive she was in real life, she couldn't compare to the mental image we had of her all these years.
I like the idea of this show being an anthology type show with rotating storylines. And not all the episodes have to be set in the Eisenhower era. Some ideas that come to mind are having Col. Flagg as part of the Watergate break in team or as an Ollie North type in an Iran-Contra type scandal. Then of course you can have serious episodes where Radar O'Reilly has sold the farm and used that money and his GI Bill to go to the University of Iowa, where he is studying radio broadcasting. He gets a job helping broadcast Iowa Hawkeye football games and in his first trip to the University of Illinois, the alma-mater of Henry Blake, he meets for the first time the widow Blake and her children. Each episode could have focused on one character, but every know and then you could have had two character meet for the first time, i.e. BJ and Trapper could end up meeting at a surgical conference. There could have also been one 2 hour show a year in which Alan Alda could produce, write, direct and preach whatever he wanted to. Lastly, another idea, Max Klinger, after divorcing Soon Li(sp?) decides to get back into dresses. However he doesn't wear them he designs them. His design firm is called the House of Max, and he becomes rich and famous and buys his beloved Toledo Mud Hens.
By the time MASH had run its course we weren't looking for more, we were wondering why we had watched it so long. The best characters had either shipped-out, died, or changed their personalities so much that they weren't the same people anymore. At the beginning, Radar was a cute, naive kid, just a little over 18, but at the end he was still trying to be cute and naive, even though he was a balding, forty-ish looking man. Hot-lips had gone from the waspish, but oh-so-delicious fantasy girl to the just-stepped-out-of-the-hairstylist's frumpy old woman. Hawkeye became the favorite character by default when we saw that he was the last character that we could identify with... and he wasn't even going to be a regular on this last ditch effort to cash in on MASH.
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09-29-2013, 04:51 AM
AfterMASH Boned the Fish When...
