>>>>>Actually the earlier shows of M*A*S*H, pre-Honeycutt episodes, were very good... IMO.
>>>>>Hawk-Eye, "Trapper John" McIntire, Frank Burns and Henry Blake characters made that show so good in it's early days.
>>>>>
>>>>>Then it started to go down hill when "Trapper" left the show.....
>>>>
>>>>I think that's when Alan Alda took over. Once all the morality lessons started seeping in, that's when I lost interest.
>>>
>>>Alen Alda "Hawkeye Pierce" was on the show from the beginning.
>>
>>Yeah, but was he directing and producing from the beginning?
>>
>>I think he started to take more control towards the end of the series.
>>
>>I'm not saying that he's a bad director, or whatever. I think he's a fine actor. Hawkeye was a better character when "Trapper" was around and Margaret had more personality with Frank Burns and unmarried.
>
>I agree, When it was Hawkeye and Trapper, the show was a lot more funny. later, after the Censors got their claws into it. They started having to appeal to the moral (family) aspects.

I don't think censors had anything to do with it. Alda pushed the show in an anti-war direction (not the original book wasn't anti-war, of course). Among his changes were that there had to be at least one OR scene in every episode to remind people that there was a war going on and people were getting hurt.

I think it's interesting that you see a male-female thing here. My husband won't watch the earlier episodes any more, but really likes the later ones.

Tamar