Do you agree with Alan Alda's least favorite M*A*S*H episode?

It's a real dud!

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Hey, they can't all be great. You need some lows to make the highs seem even more spectacular. Think of it in terms of a band: Not every release can be a greatest hits compilation. We need some album filler! Sure, some of those deep cuts might be cult favorites, but now and again, every band has a real clunker in their discography.

The same is true for TV shows.

We can't be relentlessly compelled every week. That would be torture! In a way, lots of series need low-stakes, little-remembered stories between the biggest and most impactful episodes. That way the stories that really matter have room for meaning. That's what makes a series dynamic.

However, to hear it from Alan Alda, M*A*S*H had at least one episode that was so unforgivably bad that he and his castmates were all but disowning it in real-time.

The episode in question, "Major Fred C. Dobbs," might not be a surprise in its derision amongst M*A*S*H's fanbase. Lots of people agree with Alda that this one is an all-time stinker. Specifically, the story deflates a lot of what that season was building toward. In the first batch of episodes, it's established that Hawkeye and Trapper John really dislike Frank Burns. Then, along comes episode 22, "Major Fred C. Dobbs," which sees Burns on his way out. Suddenly, Hawkeye and Trapper John are trying to prevent Burns from leaving. The whole thing just doesn't add up.

"There are a few all of us wish we didn't have to do because the idea didn't work," Alda told CNN. "The one about a gold Jeep was a low point."

Alda referenced the episode's ending when Hawkeye and Trapper John pass by Frank Burns in a gold-painted Jeep in one of the episode's too-silly subplots.

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15 Comments

CoreyC 6 days ago
My worst episode of M*A*S*H episode is Cementing Relationships where they put a cement floor in the O.R. The Italian soldier who falls in love with Margaret. The actor was not Italian who uses a stereotypical accent. It was boring and not funny.
KawiVulc 6 days ago
Nope, doesn't really ring a bell. At this point though, all the episodes bore me.
MikefromJersey 6 days ago

The episode title "Major Fred C. Dobbs," is an in-joke reference to the classic "The Treasure of
the Sierra Madre". Bogie's name in that was Fred C. Dobbs. MASH also had the character
Captain Spaulding for a few episodes, taken from the Marx Brothers song "Hurray For Captain
Spaulding" which every Groucho imitator invariably breaks in to.
That song was itself another in-joke, Spaulding being a seemingly respectable ex WW 1 aviator employed by all the studios to keep the stars out of trouble.
By supplying drugs directly to the stars so they wouldn't have to chance buying from shady
people on the street or undercover police.
Several times on "Dobie Gillis", Dobie's dad Herbert uses the alias Fred C. Dobbs.
Once when he took night classes to get his high school diploma.
The name was used on other series as well, the writers enjoying their little in-joke
which slips by most people.
Many TV series did things like that, such as with the wanted posters in Westerns.
They would have on them the names of characters on competing series, as
Bonanza did, in the one in which Hoss becomes a sheriff in a small town, I
laughed out loud at that one. Or the name on a wanted poster would be a
baseball player. Dodger players made incognito cameos on The Rifleman.

sagafrat69 7 days ago
"Dobbs" is not a bad episode. Blake gave them the reason. If Burns left Hawkeye and Trapper would be pulling double shifts until a replacement could be found which could be awhile. Made sense to me why they changed course and wanted Burns back. Not because they would miss him but for their own selfish reasons. Alda should be ashamed of the last few seasons and finale he gave us. Most of those episodes are unwatchable and that finale was sappy, boorish and worst of all, shockingly unfunny. Nothing funny about about those last few seasons and finale. Yes the finale got great ratings but still is a horrible ending for a show that was supposed to have comedy mixed with some drama. The "Dobbs" ending didn't make sense but who cares? Those earlier writers wrote FUNNY episodes and could still make their points about the horrors of war. It's a shame Alda after all these years apparently doesn't really understand that.
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sagafrat69 Coldnorth 5 days ago
Season four's "Hawkeye" is not showrunner and incredibly brilliant writer Larry Gelbart's best work. The episode served as the show's season finale. Coincidentally it's also Gelbart's last credited episode and he departed the series soon after. Season four is widely considered to be the show's best of the eleven seasons. It's the one and only season that has the same look and feel of the previous three when Blake and Trapper John were still at the 4077th. The show never looked quite the same after Gelbart's exit. I also won't watch "Hawkeye" for fear I might fall asleep in the middle of the episode. Not a great t.v. viewing experience for sure. I guess even the greatest comedy writers can write a clunker or two now and then. It happens.
Adamtwelvia Coldnorth 12 hours ago
Me neither. And they basically reinacted that for the first hour of "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen". God, did we NEED and hour of Hawkeye in a mental hospital? NO!! They could have taken out the first hour and started it from the announcement of the war ending.
Coldnorth Adamtwelvia 8 hours ago
I certainly agree with you
Coldnorth sagafrat69 8 hours ago
I’m glad that I’m not the only one that doesn’t like that episode. I wonder if he really had a script or if he just ad libed saying what came in mind at the time
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