Hot Lips's romance with Frank Burns

[Vicki L.]

At Jumptheshark.com a poster there claims the relationship between the two characters made no sense. It made perfect sense. Frank is both a doctor and rather high ranking army officer (second in command of the 4077th in fact). Hot Lips loves male officers.

[cpmaz]

Originally posted by Vicki L.
At Jumptheshark.com a poster there claims the relationship between the two characters made no sense. It made perfect sense. Frank is both a doctor and rather high ranking army officer (second in command of the 4077th in fact). Hot Lips loves male officers.

The relationship made perfect sense, creatively, anyway. During the first couple of seasons, the majors were both uptight and regular Army (Margaret) or so anal they might just as well have been regular Army (Frank). The represented the "Establishment" and served as the perfect comic antagonists for rebels Hawkeye and Trapper. Their romance was also comic (two characters that were that prudish getting sweaty with each other, and then criticizing others for basically the same behavior).

The show started losing some of its spark when they softened up the Hot Lips character with her crappy marriage to Major whathisname (I know, it's Penobscot).

[TJL]

Originally posted by cpmaz
The relationship made perfect sense, creatively, anyway. During the first couple of seasons, the majors were both uptight and regular Army (Margaret) or so anal they might just as well have been regular Army (Frank). The represented the "Establishment" and served as the perfect comic antagonists for rebels Hawkeye and Trapper. Their romance was also comic (two characters that were that prudish getting sweaty with each other, and then criticizing others for basically the same behavior).

The show started losing some of its spark when they softened up the Hot Lips character with her crappy marriage to Major whathisname (I know, it's Penobscot).

Very good points.

However, I think Frank and Margaret's releationship started to deteriorate before she got engaged.
By season 4, Margaret became a bit more level headed. She was no longer at odds with the commanding officer of the 4077th.
Col. Potter proved himself to be a fair and competant "regular Army" officer, so she wasn't always against his ideas and policies, whereas Frank was always against Potter, and many times he was made to look like a fool. Plus, in many episodes, she had problems with the way Frank conducted himself, so I think she was beginning to see Frank as the others saw him, an idiot who didn't always see things straight.