AfterMASH
AfterMASH is an American sitcom television series produced as a spin-off and continuation of M*A*S*H that aired on CBS from September 26, 1983, to May 31, 1985. It was developed as the sequel series as it takes place immediately following the end of the Korean War and chronicles the postwar adventures of three main characters from the original series: Colonel Sherman T. Potter, Sergeant Maxwell Klinger and Father John Mulcahy.
Production
AfterMASH was developed as a vehicle for Morgan, Farr, and Christopher. Rosalind Chao rounded out the starring cast as Soon-Lee Klinger, a Korean refugee whom Klinger met, fell in love with, and married in the prior series finale "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen". M*A*S*H supporting cast-member Kellye Nakahara joined them, albeit off-camera, as the voice of the hospital's public address system, and former M*A*S*H regular Gary Burghoff and recurring player Edward Winter made guest appearances as Radar O'Reilly and Colonel Samuel Flagg respectively.The series was created by Larry Gelbart, who developed the M*A*S*H series of which he was writer/showrunner for its first four seasons. Also involved with the production of AfterMASH were Burt Metcalfe and writer/producers Ken Levine and David Isaacs, who worked on M*A*S*H in its fifth to eighth seasons.
AfterMASH made frequent references to M*A*S*H, and likewise featured storylines that highlighted the horrors and suffering of war, from the non-combat perspective of a veterans' hospital. The series was released to much fanfare but was later subjected to much retooling and suffered diminishing ratings before its cancellation in 1985 after only two seasons, the second of which was cut short with only nine episodes produced. A total of 31 episodes of AfterMASH were produced and broadcast.
Broadcast
AfterMASH premiered in late 1983 in the same Monday at 9 p.m. time slot as its predecessor, M*A*S*H. It finished at No. 15 out of 101 network shows for the 1983–1984 season according to Nielsen Media Research television ratings. For its second season, CBS moved the show to Tuesday nights at 8:00 p.m., opposite NBC's Top 10 hit The A-Team, and launched a marketing campaign featuring illustrations by Sanford Kossin of Max Klinger in a female nurse's uniform shaving off Mr. T's signature mohawk, theorizing that AfterMASH would take a large portion of the A-Team audience. The opposite occurred, as AfterMASH's ratings plummeted to near the bottom of the television rankings, leading to its cancellation just nine episodes into its second season, finishing at only No. 72 out of 77 shows for the 1984–1985 season. Meanwhile, The A-Team continued until 1987, with 97 episodes.Reception
Critics were mostly negative about the program. In 1999, Time magazine listed the show as one of the 100 worst ideas of the century, and in 2002, TV Guide listed it as the seventh-worst TV series ever.Ken Levine later named AfterMASH when asked what was the worst thing he'd written, stating, "It's hard to top AfterMASH," before adding sarcastically, "Take the three weakest characters of M*A*S*H, put them in the hilarious confines of a Veteran's Hospital and you have a recipe for classic comedy." When Burt Metcalfe died in 2022, Levine - who described Metcalfe as "the best boss I ever worked for. More like a father figure, role model, and mentor" - wrote, "When I am asked why we did AfterMASH, a big reason was the chance to work with Burt again. You just don't meet wonderful quality people like that very often — especially in this industry. I would have happily signed aboard for After-AfterMASH if Burt were running it." In his blog in 2011, Levine wrote, "People always wonder why I wrote for AfterMASH. Because it was a chance to work with Larry Gelbart. I established a life-long friendship, and got to learn at the feet of the absolute master. Tell me you wouldn’t jump at that chance, too."
On the subject of AfterMASH, Larry Gelbart stated,
The show was far less than brilliant. I take full responsibility for its failure. If I hadn't been so in love with the title, I might have thought out the show to go with it in a more objective way. I knew the series would inherit Potter, Mulcahy, and Klinger. I knew, too, that good as these people are, a leading player was going to be necessary. There was an attempt to build up a central character, a doctor who had lost his leg in Korea, and played wonderfully by David Ackroyd, but other attempts at making a show with its own tone, style and intent were not as successful. Probably, an hour show would have been a better format... Oh, well, you win some and you lose some.
Gelbart also stated,
The series needed a top banana, and we didn't have one. That's not to dismiss the actors who were in the cast. They were basically supporting players and you have to be in support of something, and we didn't have that element. If I had to do it all over again, I would make it an hour show, more dramatic in nature, with comedy overtones rather than the other way around. There are probably 23 or 24 million veterans in this country. There's an audience out there who recognizes what happens in the VA, but I just took the wrong approach.
Writing for The A.V. Club in 2015, Noel Murray stated,
The failure of AfterMASH has been overstated a bit. Looking at it in retrospect, the show suffers from unflattering comparisons to M*A*S*H and from the sour feelings of its creators, who fought with CBS executives over how best to "fix" a show that wasn't terrible, just mediocre. The sitcom's first season finished in the Top 15 in the year-end Nielsen ratings, and the episode "Fallout"—about cancer patients who'd been harmed by atomic testing—was nominated for an Emmy.
William Christopher, who played Father Mulcahy, stated,
For the most part, AfterMASH is not worth talking about. I think there was one tragic flaw, it wasn't serious enough. But I was very pleased when I heard they were going to do it. The network wanted a zany comedy, and so the emphasis became trying to make it funny. I thought we should have done an hour show, like St. Elsewhere. A lot of veterans came back with problems, but we were doing wheelchair races in the hospital. Larry Gelbart wrote the show that paralleled the Agent Orange problem in Vietnam. The hospital was sort of a joke hospital, not a real one.
In a book largely focused on the parent series of AfterMASH, Dale Sherman wrote,
Home media
Unlike M*A*S*H, AfterMASH has never been released on home media, was never re-run in syndication, and has never been made available on any official streaming services. The status of the series' original master tapes or videotape copies is unknown, although off-air recordings of the series circulate unofficially.Synopsis
Season one
In the one-hour pilot episode "September of '53"/"Together Again", Colonel Potter returns home from South Korea to his wife Mildred in Hannibal, Missouri. He soon finds enforced retirement stifling, and Mildred suggests he return to work. Potter is soon hired by the bombastic and bureaucratic hospital administrator Mike D'Angelo as the chief of staff at General Pershing Veterans' Hospital, located in a fictional version of River Bend, Missouri.After a delayed return from Korea to help his bride, Soon Lee, find her family, Max Klinger finds himself ostracized from his family, and in trouble with the law in Toledo, Ohio. Potter writes to him, and offers him a job as his administrative assistant. Klinger's nemesis at General General is D'Angelo's executive secretary Alma Cox, a mean-spirited woman who is forever trying to "get the goods" on him, from rifling through his desk to giving him just one day to prepare for a civil service exam, the latter of which, despite her underhanded efforts, he still manages to pass.
Father Mulcahy, whose hearing was damaged in the final episode of M*A*S*H, is suffering from depression and drinking heavily. Potter arranges for him to receive an operation at another VA Hospital in St. Louis. After his hearing is surgically corrected, he stops drinking and joins Potter and Klinger at "General General" as its Catholic chaplain.
Also on hand is the idealistic, talented, and often hungry young resident surgeon Gene Pfeiffer, attractive secretary Bonnie Hornbeck, who has her eye on Klinger, and old-timer Bob Scannell, who served under then-Sergeant Potter in World War I and was now a hospital resident of 35 years. Unlike the other patients and staff who address Potter by his retired rank of colonel, Scannell calls him "Sarge" at Potter's request.
Halfway through the first season, Dr. Mark Boyer was introduced as a hardened veteran who lost a leg in Korea and had a hard time adjusting to civilian life. Despite only having signed on for two episodes, his character began appearing more often toward the end of the season, so often that Dr. Pfeiffer was suddenly pulled from the cast after Dr. Boyer's debut episode.
The only other main character from the original series to appear on AfterMASH was Radar, who appeared in a first-season two-part episode. As Potter, Klinger, and Mulcahy prepare to head to Iowa for Radar's wedding, Radar shows up in a panic at Potter's house in Missouri, believing his fiancée has cheated on him in "It Had to Be You". The Radar character later appeared in a pilot called W*A*L*T*E*R, in which Radar moves from Ottumwa, Iowa to St. Louis, after losing his farm, and his wife leaves him on his wedding night, and he becomes a police officer.
The season included home scenes with the Potters, most notably when they are deluged with guests in "Thanksgiving of '53", and Potter tries to keep the phone occupied so Klinger cannot call his relatives, who are on their way over to surprise him; this episode also marked the only onscreen appearance of Potter's oft-mentioned daughter, Evvy Ennis, and Potter's grandson, Corey. One of the season's standout episodes was the Emmy-nominated "Fall Out", where Potter and Pfeiffer consider leaving General General, but reconsider when they link the leukemia seen in a patient with exposure to atomic testing; writer-director Larry Gelbart received a Peabody Award for this episode. The season closed in March, with Klinger being arrested for assaulting a real estate agent as the pregnant Soon-Lee goes into labor. In May, CBS announced the show was renewed for a second season.