the giants win the pennant, the giants win the pennant!

[raven]

Still watching M*A*S*H, still talking about it. Sorry. (Except I'm kind of not.) I'm on the later seasons now, and I think I appreciate them more this time around. I'm not getting over how unusual this show is, how kind, how funny and warm and heartbreaking but above all things, how humane. And it's proudly, angrily, assuredly liberal, and oh, god, I love that. I love how it's not hipster racist, and, and, sex is not the enemy! BJ has a lot invested in his fidelity to his wife, and that's okay. Hawkeye really likes casual sex, and that's okay. Margaret really likes casual sex, and that's okay, too. (There are so many sweet little moments where the rest of the cast make jokes about how much Margaret likes sex, and they're full of affection and occasionally, awe. It makes me very happy.)

And if those ways in which I love it were not enough, it respects mental illness, in both ways that you can. It doesn't ever deny that mental illness is serious, is real, debilitating illness, and at the same time, shows you that people with mental illness can be and are happy, sad, joyous, talented, real people, thank you Hawkeye Pierce, Exhibit A so glorious and crazy.

(Oh, and it's really, really quite funny. Just to mention it.)

I will take these down in a few days, so please grab them if you want them. They're a completely random selection from season four onwards, so a quick note on who's who: Trapper is replaced by BJ, who is very different - he's gentle, a practical joker, less caustic than Hawkeye, but they're best of friends anyway - and Henry by Potter, who is a former cavalry soldier, regular army, but surprisingly sweet with it. Oh, and Frank is replaced, eventually, by Major Charles Emerson Winchester III, whose name can stand in lieu of description.

(All about 250MB unless stated)

5x10 Hawkeye Get Your Gun
I just... cannot really believe this episode. I just can't. Here is the plot. Here it is. Hawkeye, draftee, and Potter, regular army man, go on an expedition to another MASH unit through sniper country. Hawkeye refuses to carry a gun. Potter makes him, but then he refuses to fire it. People shoot at them. He refuses to fire it. They hide in a foxhole and get drunk. People shoot at them some more. ("Why are they bombing us? We're already bombed!") He refuses to fire it.

I just,... I can't. thingswithwings wrote the other day that the very fact it's a comedy lets this show do the daring, outrageous things. And, just, watching this in 2011 when the US is still at war on several fronts and then so is Britain, when war is patriotic and something we do to blitz brown people, watching this show where Hawkeye sits in a foxhole, drunk, being shot at, and refuses to fire his gun, I just, I can't deal. I get handflappy.

5x14 The Most Unforgettable Characters
Radar takes up writing purple prose; Hawkeye and BJ decide to have a fight as a birthday present for Frank. This is basically a fanfic plot trope convention complete with sparkly hearts.

8x11 Life Time
Hawkeye, BJ and Margaret have twenty minutes to repair a patient's aorta before they risk giving him paralysis. This may be the first episode of anything to deliberately run in real time: the clock in the corner of the screen even jumps forwards at the points where the advert breaks would be. I love how it's shot, I love the immediacy of it, I love how the whole thing is shot through with distant sunshine. It's so sharp and so good.

(Warning, though: it's a wee bit more graphic than the show usually is: which is, not very very, but there is quite a bit of blood in this one.)

9x05 Death Takes A Holiday [390MB]
This one is infamous, somewhat: BJ, Hawkeye and Margaret try to keep a comatose soldier alive long enough so he won't die on Christmas Day. Do I need to mention that this one is sad? This one is sad. It's also poignant and beautifully written and oh, oh my god, so sad.

9x06 A War For All Seasons [390MB] [edit: now with fixed link!]
This one is adorably structured - a series of vignettes, beginning December 31st 1950 and going through to the next new year.

(Oh my god, continuity what even is it. The pilot has a date-and-time title card. Trapper and Henry Blake were in camp on New Year's Eve 1951. Henry was STILL ALIVE. Or not. I don't even know. I'll shut up now. Actually no i won't. The way the war goes on and on and there are Christmases and New Years and nothing ever changes - hey, you guys, you think this show might be about a different war? A different war in Asia? Okay really shutting up now.)

Anyway. The reason this one is adorable is because it is basically a gigantic excuse to talk about knitting, corn on the cob and the Shot Heard 'Round The World. I have a lot of love.

In conclusion - I heart this show thiiiiiiiiiis much and I am going away to try and not be so uncool now.

Comments

[thingswithwings]

Uh, hello, THIS IS YOU BEING COOL. This is you being super-uber-completely cool and I will not tolerate any opinions to the contrary.

now, on to talking about MASH: omg omg omg! everything you say about liberalism and sex and mental illness and no hipster racism! "Hawkeye Get Your Gun" really amazed me too . . . it's such a hardcore statement about pacifism, and how hard it is and how brave you have to be to do it; Hawkeye refusing to fire his gun is just . . . it's so beautiful. I also like the episode where he's Officer of the Day and refuses to carry one, but this one. Just. Yes.

I'm currently at the beginning of season eleven, which is to say almost done my complete rewatch (sadface!) so I've seen all these, and some more recently . . . I had the EXACT same thought process you did at "A War for All Seasons," which started with "seriously, though" and went through to "of course it's about a war stretching on and on." One thing I find funny is how quickly even within a season they'll go from summer to winter, from a heat wave episode to a cold snap episode to a christmas episode to a fourth of july episode. So I really liked the way that "A War for All Seasons" brought all that together, and showed the futility and inevitability of the war dragging on, and. Yeah. Dude I cry so much at this show all the time.

(You should tell Shim that lately I have taken to finishing an episode in tears, and then crying out EVEN THE HAPPY ONES ARE SAD. Or, if it's not a happy one, then I cry out THE SAD ONES ARE REALLY REALLY SAD THOUGH.)

In conclusion, MASH MASH MASH. I'm so surprised that I could watch eleven seasons of it, almost, and it never ever got old, or stopped being smart and funny and upsetting and desperately sad and SO RELEVANT. Jeez.

[raven]

Oh my god Megan I have EMOTIONS. MORE THAN ONE EMOTION, EVEN. "Hawkeye Get Your Gun" - I still can't quite believe it, and I've rewatched it a bunch of times since. You use the word "brave", and, yes: I feel like the show does that all the time in lots of ways, telling you that bravery takes many forms and it's not something unique to charging forward killing people. Shim's basic opinion hasn't changed! Oh, when we watched "Goodbye, Farewell, Amen". Oh. *flutters*

(Also, something else you said the other day: Hawkeye is a knitter, omg, I have hearts.)

[surexit]

OH GOD, MASH makes me entirely incoherent. *waves hands* I love it so much, for so many of the reasons you articulate here.

[raven]

It makes me incoherent too! Lots of handflapping and happy noises.

[frustratedpilot]

The subplot for Life-Time was pretty cool too. The patient/audience helps things along for the regulars and sees the rewards of his actions, even though he can't move or speak himself.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I think that one's Point of View! The one with the kid with throat wounds, right?

[wishfulaces.livejournal.com]

There is nothing uncool about loving M*A*S*H. But then again, what the hell do I know? (Sydney Freedman, still the most comforting character on telly ever.)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heee! Isn't he just? "Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice" is such very GOOD advice,

[brynnmck.livejournal.com]

I'm loving your M*A*S*H talk so much! I used to watch it every night with my parents when I was growing up (it was on after Jeopardy, IIRC), and so I'm sure I've seen every episode at least twice. But I haven't watched much since, and you're definitely making me want to! ♥ I'm sure I would respond to it much differently as an adult than I did as a teenager, though I loved it then, too.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm glad! I totally get what you're saying, too:I mean, I loved it so much before, but this time around I'm finding so much in it to get excited and impressed by.

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

Have you ever seen the Frasier episode in which the actor who plays Winchester appears as Frasier's mother's former (work) partner. Frasier suspects he may actually be his father, and it is utterly believable. Charles Emerson Winchester III could very easily be the father of Frasier and Niles...

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

In addition, thank you for the episodes! I have S1-6 on dvd and nothing beyond (apart from the finale), so it will be a wonderful treat to watch these.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, yay! The link for the last one is fixed, btw.

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

They are taking so long to download for me today - over an hour for the second one... Looking forward so much to watching them and getting my Alan Alda fix. Is it wrong to have a crush on someone old enough to be my grandfather?

[bekkypk.livejournal.com]

I think I've seen this one! And I fully agree :D
xx

[dougs.livejournal.com]

I have not seen this episode, but I can perfectly understand how believable that is.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

YES OMG. I KNOW, RIGHT. It's such an homage, I love it.

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

In my mind they are the same person: Charles Winchester came home and went to work with Hester Crane. I shall handwave over the chronology. Maybe he took a trip in the Tardis in the meantime.

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

OMG 5X14 RADAR'S PURPLE PROOOOOOOOOOOOOSE.

There is not enough love in the world.

Do not go away! Never become more cool! M*A*S*H FOREVER!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*laughs* so many HEARTS!

[dougs.livejournal.com]

M*A*S*H is wonderful, and particularly becuase of your almost-parenthetical second-last reason. You can see just how Hawkeye helps me deal with my own rather milder issues from some of the ways I've written him when I needed his help.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*nods* Yes. It is good storytelling on many levels.

[not-vacillating.livejournal.com]

(The link for 9x05 seems to go to 9x06?)

I love reading about you loving this show. Almost as much as I myself love this show. It's been too long since I watched it regularly.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Fixed, and thank you. :) It is such a lovely show, on so many levels. I am really glad my love for it remains after all these years.

[coloursofdusk.livejournal.com]

I have seasons one and three and just went to check how much buying the others would cost. There is a box set of ALL THE M*A*S*H for less than £50. I think I know what my first paycheque will partly be spent on! These posts are happy-making. If being cool means not writing about stories that you love, never be cool, please!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* It is that sub-£50 boxset that is causing this little renaissance. Oh, show!

[ghostrunner7.livejournal.com]

Hey, sweetie, I'm loving these MASH episodes that you put up, but I just noticed that 9.05 and 9.06 both link to the same download.

[ghostrunner7.livejournal.com]

Or, you know, maybe I could have refreshed the page and noticed that you fixed it.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Glad you like 'em. :)

[tau_sigma]

I have still not watched enough M*A*S*H, but I am downloading it. (Slowly, slowly. One time when I'd just turned my computer on, it calmly estimated something around 300 days to download. I think it's more realistically at about 10 days, now; and that's only the first 5 seasons!)