When did M*A*S*H jump the shark for you?

Never

BJ Hunnicutt

The show lost Stevenson (a huge blow) & Rogers (100x preferable to Farrell) after s3, then show runner Larry Gelbart after s4.

But if you must have one turning point, it can be narrowed down not to one season, or one episode, or even one scene, but one shot:

"The Late Captain Pierce"
s4 e4

A bureaucratic mistake leaves the army thinking that Hawkeye Pierce is dead, and he simultaneously enjoys the lack of responsibility that comes from being legally deceased, with trying to contact his father back in Maine to tell him he's still alive.

quote:

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Captain Pratt (Eldon Quick), who promises to fix the error, but the paperwork is voluminous and the protocol involved is time-consuming. In the meantime Pierce, with no money or mail, will have to remain, in Pratt's words, an "unperson." In a fit of anger, Hawkeye decides to accept his fate and desert as a suppositious cadaver; despite Digger's protest that he can't take passengers, Hawkeye climbs on board Digger's cadaver bus and prepares to leave saying, "I'm not a passenger, I'm cargo." As a deluge of wounded arrive, B.J. attempts to dissuade Hawkeye from leaving, but citing Trapper and Henry's respective departures, Hawkeye argues that the wounded will keep coming whether he's there or not. The bus drives off, but stops just outside camp in front of Rosie's Bar; Hawkeye grudgingly climbs out the back door and walks back to camp.

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After that moment, MASH would never again be the same show.

It helps if you see the show in 3 parts.
Part 1: Trapper and Henry
Part 2: BJ, Potter and Burns
Part 3: No Radar and Winchester.

Really 3 different shows, just with many of the same characters.

Trivia tidbit... the cast loved Larry Linville and hated Gary Burghoff. Exact opposite from the characters.

Never. It definitely dropped off but I still liked it until the end. Somewhere, I still have the VHS copy of the finale that I recorded when it aired.

Of course, I was a kid. Now, when I see those latter episodes in reruns, they're pretty annoying. Alan Alda is such a sanctimonious, narcissistic jerkoff.

Colonel Flagg should’ve been in every episode!

It only maybe did in hindsight.

Enjoyed most every episode as a kid.

But when Alan Alda got control, the show shifted.

Reruns were more enjoyable during the Trapper and Frank years...if you want to call that jumping the shark.

After the movie.

I liked Mash until the end. Yes some episodes were preachy but I still liked it. I liked Winchester better than Frank who was nothing more than a punching bag. Frank occasionally got some good licks in against Hawkeye and Frank although a snob sometimes showed a different side. He wasn't as one dimensional as Frank. Sure we NEVER wanted to hear about freaking Peg from BJ. He was not as fun as Trapper. Margaret and Donald sucked. I liked Potter. Once again, even though I like Blake he was the stereotypical bumbling boss. Maybe as an adult, my opinion would change if I watched them again, but growing up with Mash, I liked them all.

After Mash.... yikes.

I don't know when MASH jumped, but it obviously did. Not that it was ever Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers, but there was at least an attempt at realism for the first couple of seasons. The final seasons with the aging cast in an 11 year campaign during a 3 year war was a parody of a parody. The show lost its edge once BJ showed up. It was always entertaining but never as good as it was in the first couple of seasons.