Summary
- "Our Finest Hour" is the only MASH episode that features the entire cast, but it is a clip show.
- "The Interview" from season 4 is considered one of the best episodes of the series due to its dark, emotionally charged storyline.
- "Our Finest Hour" is one of the least-liked episodes of MASH because it lacks fresh insights and emotional depth, and recycles concepts from "The Interview."
MASH was almost canceled following its first season. The show adapted both the original novel and the acclaimed 1970 Robert Altman movie, but it consistently struggled in the ratings in its first year. Thankfully, those numbers improved greatly during re-runs, and over time, the series evolved into a unique blend of sitcom and medical drama.
It was a show that both delighted and shocked in equal measure, with the lighthearted antics of "Hawkeye" Pierce (Alan Alda) and co contrasted against the surprisingly bloody (for the 1970s, at least) surgery scenes. Alda was the only actor to appear in every episode, and MASH saw many major actors exit throughout its 11-season run. The most infamous was Henry Blake (McLean Stevenson), a key ing player throughout the first three seasons who was abruptly killed off in his final episode.
Season 7's "Our Finest Hour" Is The Only MASH Episode With The Show's Entire Cast
Sadly, that's because it's MASH's only clip show
Later MASH seasons would get increasingly experimental in its later seasons, such as season 7's "Point of View," where the entire episode is shot from the perspective of a mute, wounded soldier. Another notable season 7 outing is "Our Finest Hour," where a reporter named Clete Roberts visits the 4077th to explore life at the medical unit. "Our Finest Hour" is the only MASH episode to feature every major cast member from the show's run, but that's not because departed characters like Trapper John (Wayne Rogers) make surprise appearances.
Instead, "Our Finest Hour" is MASH's only clip show, with footage from past episodes being spliced throughout. Clip shows are a somewhat despised format now, but they were more useful back in the early days of television and before the advent of home media or the internet. They collected together the most memorable moments from a given series, so viewers who missed those episodes could play catch-up. Nowadays, clip shows like "Our Finest Hour" are largely obsolete, since audiences can pull up their favorite clips on YouTube whenever they wish.
MASH's "Our Finest Hour" features footage from past episodes like "Abyssinia, Henry" - the episode where Blake is killed - "Adam's Ribs," "Change of Command" and others, intercut with new interviews. It's not a framing device that works very well, with the splicing together of the old and new footage feeling jarring. It also has the classic clip show problem of the framing story feeling very undercooked.
"Our Finest Hour" Is A Sequel To MASH's Most Acclaimed Episode
Season 4's "The Interview" is a classic
The fourth season of MASH is considered one of the strongest and for good reason. It was the season that introduced Hawkeye's new bestie B.J. Hunnicutt (Mike Farrell), saw the writers perfect the show's tragi-comic tone and it ended with an incredible finale. MASH's "The Interview" is maybe the best episode of the entire series, and follows Clete Roberts' first visit to the unit. The episode is made up of individual interviews with the main characters as they describe their personal experiences of the war.
"The Interview" still has laughs, but its stark black-and-white look and the committed performances make it an unforgettable outing. The writers of MASH often pulled stories from real-life war surgeons (via THR), which inspired the season 4 finale's most haunting moment. This is where the unit's good-natured Father Mulcahy (William Christopher) recounts watching surgeons warming their hands over the open wounds of patients during the winter, as they were so cold.
Father Mulcahy then states: "How could anybody look upon that and not feel changed?"
Why MASH's "The Interview" Worked & "Our Finest Hour" Didn't
"Our Finest Hour" is one of MASH's least-liked episodes
MASH's "Our Finest Hour" may feature the entire cast, but there's not much else memorable about it. "The Interview" is a dark, emotionally charged episode that plays with the sitcom's format in a powerful way. "Our Finest Hour" instead offers a lazy recycling of "The Interview's" concept as a way to justify its clip show presentation. It doesn't offer any fresh insights into the characters or the war and does the bare minimum not to feel like filler. The emotionality that powered "The Interview" is nowhere to be found in its season 7 sequel.
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Worst of all, it recycles the aforementioned "hand warming" speech from season 4's "The Interview," since that was the most famous clip. MASH's "Our Finest Hour" isn't a total disaster, but it proved beyond a doubt the series wasn't built for a "best of" montage episode. At the very least, the network never tried to mount another clip show again.
Source: THR
