Day #12 of the 30 Day Television Challenge

[shadowkat]

Day 12 of 30 Day Television Challenge

The prompt: Character that you initially found annoying but you grew to love

This is not as easy as it looks..

I'm going with...

Wes in Angel. (Note - it was in Angel that I initially found Wes annoying and grew to love the character. Actually I think Wes was possibly the best developed character on Angel.).

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Comments

[shadowkat]

The show changed a bit - when Alda starting writing for it, and it was less Gelbert's baby. The early episodes are kind of similar to the movie - absurdist war comedy, with little to no true character development, and women objectified. It's funny absurdist war comedy - I mean there's an episode in there with a helicopter carrying off something like a piano (can't remember what it was) that was pure comedy. The Movie is an absurdist war comedy based on a series of books about MASH units in the Korean War. (I know this because I found and read one of the books - they aren't memorable.)

But as you move past S3...it begins to change. As do the supporting characters. Radar starts to grow up and change, Henry Blake is killed, Frank leaves, as does Trapper John, and the comedy moves from absurdist physical comedy to a dryer more biting commentary on the WAR. We move from physical comedy on Frank, to Winchester's biting wit. Blake's flakiness, to Potter's snark. And Hawkeye's remarks to Houlihan - become increasingly exposed as sexist and borderline misogynistic.

Alda and Gelbert, once freed from having to repeat the movie or follow the books, which had been forgotten by the fourth or fifth season were able to be a bit more experimental and do more.

[cjlasky7]

The counter argument:

As the series progressed and Gelbart gave way to Alda as the creative engine, M*A*S*H became less about Hawkeye and Trapper (or B.J.) against the lunatics running the army and more about the entire cast against "The War."

With Frank gone and cartoonish antagonists like Flagg phased out, the anti-war viewpoint of Hawkeye wasn't the rebel stance, it was the default. Even the regular army personnel like Houlihan and Potter didn't put up many arguments on behalf of their chosen careers.

That drained a lot of the conflict out of the series, to its detriment. Alda and the other writers were good enough to successfully focus on developing the cast of characters (I especially liked the Mulcahy episodes, for some reason!), and he continued Gelbart's experimentation with the format ("Dreams" is fantastic).

But I still think an essential part of the series' DNA was lost when Alda took over.

[shadowkat]

I honestly don't remember the show well enough to debate it with you. I haven't watched or seen an episode of it since 1987.