The one hundred and fifty-ninth TV show: #183 MASH

For me, MASH was partially a rewatch. It was part of late night repeats for me for a while, mostly with episodes from the final cast from season 6 on, but I've jumped around enough to see other major episodes. The basic premise of a series set in a medical hospital in the Korean war is different enough in the 1970s sitcom landscape, but the way it manages to bring in relevant issues of the time and creates a number of more dramatic episodes shows what else they can get from it. As the series moves on, it becomes capable of experimenting and exploring these subjects in a way few shows are allowed to do. The freedom came from its enormous popularity - the final episode still holds the record of the highest ratings for a scripted series.

Revisiting and rewatching the series has been great, with the first season still holding up. Even though it's still more of a comedy at some point, halfway through it's introduced a number of more dramatic episodes while the later episodes we watched show how they seemed to have moved these to perfection. The version we had omits the laughter track as well - famously negotiated so it wouldn't play in surgery but had to be present everywhere else - which probably makes the stories work a bit better. We're going to keep watching - we'll see if we finish it - but it's great to see that (a few dated jokes aside) the series still holds up.