The finale of MASH was tepid at best, stale at its worst.<br /><br />There were allegations that the show had run its course several years before they finally decided to end it. It just wasn't the same for me when Radar left.<br /><br />I Love Lucy ran for 7 or 8 years, Beverly Hillbillies for 9. MASH ran for 11 years.<br /><br />This was the highest-rated finale because people wanted to see the train wreck. Would someone die? The big clincher was supposed to be Hawkeye going crazy. Oh, that was without a doubt the worst one here.<br /><br />Alan Alda just ate it all up trying to be in denial what 'he had done' and then fall apart and then become defensive, but it was so flat, it was forgettable.<br /><br />What he had done was supposedly caused a Korean mother to kill her own child. The insensitivity was that nothing was shown any further of the mother.<br /><br />Yes, this was all Hawkeye's anguish wasn't it? I think we were all looking at it and going 'what about the mother?' This became something of a staple in 1980s television at this time; become overwrought over the actions of someone else, then watch how it pains me and not them.<br /><br />A popular soap actor would talk about how he was torn up over the Viet Nam war for about three weeks. He didn't enlist, but he was trouble for that time period over whether he should or not, as tho this compared to vets who served two years or more over there.<br /><br />Hill Street Blues would manage to make fun of people like this, with a character on the show stating pretty much the same thing (seems like it should have been Keil Martin's character), saying they were torn up for 24 days over the Viet Nam war, telling this to a vet.<br /><br />It would go even further when a soap opera had a character operating a crisis hotline become overwrought when a person committed suicide over the phone. See our young star's anguish, how upset he is? Any viewer watching was going, hey, what about the kid on the phone? Funniest by far was Fame, one of the worst shows around, when Nia Peeples character left the show, she was killed off in an episode involving drunk driving.<br /><br />Jesse, another character, tormented the driver about his actions, until finally Danny, who was also in the car, had to tell him "what about MY responsibility? I was in the car too?" Funny thing was, they stood in the snow, Danny and Jesse, sobbing as they hugged, but no one was hugging the poor kid who did the driving. He just stood there alone, crying to himself.<br /><br />Television likes to think that these characters just go away; the suicide phone caller, the drunk driver and the Korean mother.<br /><br />Hawkeye just skipped away back to America, cured by Sidney.<br /><br />In the end, eveyrone's fave was the Korean band. They were the biggest stars, not Hawkeye's remorse.