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

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.