M*A*S*H (television)/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

** Speaking of Klinger, can anyone explain why the hell he was given a tent all to himself while captains and majors were sharing quarters in the Swamp?

*** Would you bunk with him if you didn't have to? The rest of the barracks probably complained until he got the boot.

* Where did Hawkeye and Trapper get trained? Their lack of military professionalism is evident throughout the series, and sometimes it goes far beyond a simple defensive mechanism to cope with stitching up kids younger than themselves. And besides their brilliance in surgery, why didn't they ever get busted, or even a real reprimand? Henry couldn't have been THAT spineless.

** It was (and still is) common for civilian professionals (lawyers, chaplains, nurses and doctors) to basically take the 90-day officers' course. Doctors start out as Captains, other professionals as 1st Lieutenants. This wasn't intended to make them proper military men, it was to get them used to military procedure and the system within which they were expected to work. Unsurprisingly, it didn't always take. In most cases (chaplains particularly) they are not expected to have any real command responsibility, which means the rest of the hierarchy can ignore them until needed.

*** There's also the question of how the camp had such a high survival rate if one of the four doctors was so incompetent. If Burns was really as bad as they claimed he was while being one of the camp's few doctors, they could not have had a 97% success rate.

**** The show's Burns was heavily [[Flanderization|Flanderized]] from the novel's original. ''That'' Burns was a decent surgeon -- not a prodigy like Hawkeye, Duke and Trapper, but still respectable -- he just had an attitude that the others couldn't stand. Given the books' versions are [[Jerkass Hero]]es that the show toned down, another reason was needed for why Frank was objectionable. Even then, it's pretty likely that much of the accusations of incompetence are insults and [[Trash Talk]] rather than literal truth. (Though TV's Frank Burns was certainly capable of major malpractice at his worst.)

 

* Did the characters' attitudes have to be so anachronistic? I could stand them being a bit ahead of their time, but it's just so blatant, especially in the latter seasons, how everyone acts like the social movements of the 1960s have already happened. And the 1950s were twenty years before the show was made, so there's no way the cast and crew didn't live through the time period they were portraying.

** In another episode, Hawkeye wants to surrender. Margaret already pointed out that if they surrender, the nurses would have their bodies violated over and over again. Hawkeye tries to surrender anyway, even though Henry said he couldn't. When it doesn't work out, nobody says anything to Hawkeye, not even Frank and Margaret, both of whom want to get rid of him. This would be a legitimate chance. He disobeyed orders and tried to surrender when he still had the means to resist. This would be a court-martial offense, one that would likely land him in prison, yet no one says anything.

*** As a hospital, the doctors ''weren't'' able to resist. Medical officers are not permitted to fire or even carry weapons. Normally, the hospital would have had the real soldiers armed and hunting for the sniper.

** Another time, Hawkeye drugs Frank and puts him in a bed in Post-Op so he can have a party.

** Another time, when Frank is passed out, Hawkeye puts a toe tag on him and ships him off like he's dead.

** In one episode, he steals a Jeep, drives to Panmunjom, berates the peace delegates, then drives back to the camp. Potter not only lets this slide, but approves of the stunt. When a major comes to confront Hawkeye about his actions, the major tells him the general said to stay at least 20 miles away from Panmunjom, but he relays the message that if the general could get away with it, he'd do the same thing.

*** In [[Real Life]], anybody at all who tried that on would have been lucky to spend the rest of his life in Leavenworth.

** In the episode where Hawkeye wins a Howitzer in a poker game. Potter tells him he has to move it out of the camp. Hawkeye says it's his and he's going to find something to do with it. After Potter tells Hawkeye he's found an artillery unit that will take it, Potter lets Hawkeye do what he wants with it (sabotage it), which still doesn't get it out of the camp. And this is portrayed as being okay and the right thing to do.

*** Kind of supports the communist sympathiser theory. The howitzer can no longer be used to kill communist soldiers, yet still puts American lives at risk by being in a non-combat unit.

* Why doesn't Klinger just shoot himself in the foot?

** Because self-inflicted wounds of that sort would get him out of the Army -- and straight into Leavenworth, where he does not want to go.

 

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[[Category:Live Action TV/Headscratchers]]

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