"I'd love you in war and peace. Or Moby Dick. Any of the classics."

In the fall of 1972, 20th Century Fox's television division and the Columbia Broadcasting Service took a creative gamble and adapted the 1970 anti-war comedy M*A*S*H as a television comedy series which took the film's setting (a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in South Korea during the Korean War) and major characters (Drs. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, "Trapper" John McIntyre, Frank Burns, Henry Blake, Chief Nurse Margaret Houlihan, and company clerk Cpl. Radar O'Reilly) into American homes in prime time one night per week.

Although the first season had its fair share of growing pains (pruning of characters seen in the movie, some uneven scripts), M*A*S*H's initial 24-episode run was very successful and was nominated for various Emmys, including Outstanding New Series and Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actor (Alan Alda). These and other laurels, combined with good ratings, convinced CBS to renew the show for the 1973-1974 season.

With their marching orders from CBS, producers Gene Reynolds and Larry Gelbart took their small army of writers, directors, and actors back to 20th Century Fox Studio's Stage 9, and production began on Season 2's batch of 24 episodes.

Nurse #3: Does every new nurse fall in love with you here?
Hawkeye: No, only the ones with taste.
Nurse #3: Do you think I have any?
Hawkeye: I don't know, let me taste you.

By now, Alan Alda, Wayne Rogers, McLean Stevenson, Larry Linville, Loretta Swit, and Gary Burghoff had fleshed out their roles as Hawkeye, Trapper, Henry Blake, Major Burns, "Hot Lips" Houlihan, and Radar, with the latter losing any trace of his early sarcasm and acquiring the charming innocence that endeared the short company clerk to millions of viewers. (For actor Burghoff, however, the image of Radar as the 4077th's "kid brother-type" became a burden, a factor that would lead him to depart the series in its eighth season.)

As in the first year, M*A*S*H continued its chronicles of a group of mostly draftee doctors and medics as they coped with the horrors and sheer boredom of war. Although set in Korea during the early 1950s, some of the show's most pointed barbs against war in general and the bureaucracy of the Army in particular stemmed from the Vietnam War.

[reading a letter that Hawkeye threatens to send to Frank Burns' wife]
Radar: Dear Mrs. Burns, I regret to inform that your husband has been seen out of uniform, and maybe you would like to know with who.
Hawkeye: [emphasizing] "Whom".

Quality-wise, the second season saw a marked improvement in the scripts and consistency in details. It also saw, albeit in subtle ways, a bit of an evolution in the characters and how they related to each other. Alan Alda's Hawkeye, of course, was the clear "heart and soul" of the series, often eclipsing Wayne Rogers' supposedly co-equal Trapper and almost relegating him to "straight man" status. Larry Linville, in a brilliant bit of acting, knew Major Burns was not a bright or competent man, so he deliberately never let his character evolve, lest he become a sympathetic character and rob the show of its main antagonist. Loretta Swit's character, Maj. Margaret Houlihan, was still a by-the-book Regular Army nurse and still in cahoots with Frank, especially in his quest to rein in Hawkeye and Trapper's hijinks and, if possible, get rid of Lt. Col. Henry Blake and take command of the 4077th.
(Indeed, in episode 8, "The Trial of Henry Blake," the scheming duo reports on the shenanigans at the 4077th to the Army brass and get Henry court-martialed)

Hawkeye's making out with a nurse he thinks is married]
Hawkeye: What am I doing? What am I doing?
Lt. Erica Johnson: Whatever it is, I approve.

There were several types of episodes in the series, including vignette-driven "letters home" ones such as "Dear Dad...Three" and "Radar's Report." Then there "message" episodes dealing with relations between Americans and South Koreans ("L.I.P," "Kim," and "The Chosan People"), plus what I call "Rube Goldberg" episodes in which an object or person becomes the focus of a quest, then is lost, such as the one in which Hawkeye attempts to get a new boot by wheeling and dealing with half the camp's staff.


Zale: Look, we made a deal. He didn't come through.
Hawkeye: Do you know what I did? How I degraded myself? How I groveled, how I humbled, how I cheapened myself? All for a pair of miserable, lousy, army boots? I swear to you, as dedicated as I am to the sanctity and preservation of human life, if I had a gun at this moment, I would send my head across the tent!
Zale: A gun takes six weeks. There's a terrific waiting list.

One of the things that added consistency to the series' quality, in my opinion, was that most of the episodes were scripted by Larry Gelbart and Laurence Marks, with a few other writers (Sheldon Keller and Mary Kay Place) adding distinctive shows of their own. This gave the show at least the illusion of continuity and added a fine balance between outright hilarity, moral outrage, and heartbreaking poignancy.

Another neat trick was the introduction of recurring characters, such as Edward Winters' paranoid-McCarthyite CIA/Army Intelligence operative Col. Flagg and Alan Arbus' droll psychiatrist Dr. Sidney Freedman. Diametrically opposites in personality, these two wonderful characters added depth and humorous situations to the already insane conditions faced by the 4077th.

M*A*S*H: The Complete Second Season presents all 24 episodes in their original, uncut (before syndication) versions, with eight episodes per disk.

Episode List for Season Two, 1973-1974

1. Divided We Stand (Written by Larry Gelbart)
2. Radar's Report (Written by Laurence Marks, story by Sheldon Keller)
3. 5 O'Clock Charlie (Written by Larry Gelbart and Laurence Marks)
4. For the Good of the Outfit (Written by Jerry Mayer)
5. Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde (Written by Alan Alda and Robert Klane)
6. L.I.P. (Written by Carl Kleinschmitt)
7. Kim (Written by Marc Mandel, Larry Gelbart, and Laurence Marks)
8. The Trial of Henry Blake (Written by McLean Stevenson, Larry Gelbart, and Laurence Marks)
9. Dear Dad...Three (Written by Larry Gelbart and Laurence Marks)
10. The Sniper (Written by Richard M. Powell)
11. Carry On, Hawkeye (Written by Bernard Dilbert, Larry Gelbart, and Laurence Marks)
12. The Incubator (Written by Larry Gelbart and Laurence Marks)
13. Deal Me Out (Written by Larry Gelbart and Laurence Marks)
14. Hot Lips and Empty Arms (Written by Linda Bloodworth and Mary Kay Place)
15. Officers Only (Written by Ed Jurist)
16. The Chosan People (Written by Laurence Marks, Sheldon Keller, and Larry Gelbart)
17. As You Were (Written by Larry Gelbart and Laurence Marks)
18. Crisis (Written by Larry Gelbart and Laurence Marks)
19. Henry in Love (Written by Larry Gelbart and Laurence Marks)
20. For Want of a Boot (Written by Sheldon Keller)
21. Operation Noselift (Written by Erik Tarloff)
22. George (Written by John Regier and Gary Markowitz)
23. Mail Call (Written by Larry Gelbart and Laurence Marks)
24. A Smattering of Intelligence (Written by Larry Gelbart and Laurence Marks)

DVD Features:
Available Subtitles: English, Spanish
Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)