"We are stuck in Korea, or as we like to call it, 'hell'...."

Even as the series returned to the CBS fall schedule in October of 1981 after a successful ninth season, producer Burt Metcalfe, creative consultant Alan Alda, the writers, cast, and crew began to think about an exit strategy for the doctors, nurses, medics, and soldiers of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. Since 1972, the creative team behind one of television's finest comedy-drama series had already given audiences 214 episodes, and even as first-run episodes were being written and filmed on the 20th Century Fox lot, many of those episodes were airing in syndication in many markets. The ratings for the Monday night airings were consistently good, and the quality of the writing and acting showed no sign of slipping into a Happy Days-like downward spiral. If the series was to avoid an infamous "jump the shark" episode that was followed by lower ratings (and less ad revenue for CBS), it was best to give viewers two more complete seasons and go out in style.

Following the precedent established in the previous season, the producers once again made less than 24 episodes, dividing what would have been a one-hour episode into two half-hour shows ("Snap Judgment," "Snappier Judgment") for a grand total of 21, one more than the previous year's batch.

Although M*A*S*H continued to be consistently funny and always thought provoking, some of the episodes veered into "political correctness." Even though its tone had always been anti-war and sometimes not-so-gently critical of the Army's stifling and mind-bending bureaucratic ways, the show aired quite a few episodes which were full of self-righteousness, particularly "Give 'em Hell, Hawkeye," in which a disgruntled Hawkeye composes a letter protesting the conduct of the war...and sends it to President Harry Truman.

Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce: We are stuck in Korea, or as we like to call it, 'hell,' and we'd like to go home before winter when hell freezes over.

Another preachier-than-usual episode was "Blood and Guts," which pits Hawkeye (once again) against Clayton Kibbee, an Ernest Hemingway-esque war correspondent who tends to write articles about the Korean War as though it was some grand adventure.

Nevertheless, Season 10 had more good shows than weak ones, especially now that the series had evolved from being more overtly comedic to being character-driven and introspective. The penultimate year of M*A*S*H, for instance, gave audiences various insightful episodes that revealed a more caring side of the sometimes pompous Charles Emerson Winchester III, who could go from an apparently selfish newspaper hoarder in "Communications Breakdown" to a quietly supportive Swampmate to Hawkeye in "Sons and Bowlers," in which the Boston-bred blue blood tries to assuage a worried Dr. Pierce's anxieties (whose father is undergoing delicate surgery back in the States) and reveals some of his own troubled father-son issues.

Jamie Farr, whose character of Corporal Max Klinger was no longer bucking for a Section 8 discharge, was given quite a few moments of air time to shine. Not only did he have to endure a court-martial proceeding after he is wrongfully suspected of stealing Hawkeye's new Polaroid camera in the two-episode story arc "Snap Judgment" and "Snappier Judgment," but he also did a wonderful bit of dramatic acting in the surrealistic "Follies of the Living -Concerns of the Dead," directed by Alan Alda and focusing on Klinger's fever-driven conversation with the spirit of Private Weston, a soldier who has just died and whose ghost is wandering around the compound.

Other outstanding episodes include "Wheelers and Dealers," in which a much-chagrined Col. Potter has to take driving lessons from Sgt. Rizzo (G.W. Bailey from The Police Academy series); "The Tooth Shall Set You Free," wherein Charles tries to avoid dental treatment for a severe toothache, even as BJ and Hawkeye find out that a white supremacist colonel is sending more black soldiers than white GI's into harm's way, and "Rumor at the Top," which has the staff of the 4077th thinking that the unit is being disbanded and that its personnel are going to be split up and sent elsewhere.

Careful viewers will note that this season's guest stars include Laurence Fishbourne (in "The Tooth Shall Set You Free"), Xander (24) Berkeley ("Give 'em Hell, Hawkeye"), and Tom Hanks' wife Rita Wilson as Nurse Lacey in "Blood and Guts."


Although the three-disk set issued by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment does have the advantages of presenting the 21 episodes of Season 10 uncut and unaltered for syndication, DVD fans will, unfortunately, have to do without extra features as audio commentary tracks from cast and crew. If you like canned laughter, you can watch the episodes with laugh tracks. (I, on the other hand, watch M*A*S*H without the canned guffaws, chuckles, and roars of laughter; I've never, ever liked laugh tracks, so why have to put up with them when I don't have to?)

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

M*A*S*H Season 10: Episode List


1. That's Show Biz
2. Identity Crisis
3. Rumor at the Top
4. Give 'Em Hell, Hawkeye
5. Wheelers and Dealers
6. Communication Breakdown
7. Snap Judgment
8. Snappier Judgment
9. 'Twas the Day After Christmas
10. Follies of the Living - Concerns of the Dead
11. The Birthday Girls
12. Blood and Guts
13. A Holy Mess
14. The Tooth Shall Set You Free
15. Pressure Points
16. Where There's a Will, There's a War
17. Promotion Commotion
18. Heroes
19. Sons and Bowlers
20. Picture This
21. That Darn Kid