Of course,MASHwas still a solid ratings success, and CBS wanted to keep it running.
On paper, this sounded like a solid pitch, but in reality,AfterMASHwas a disaster.
The only issue there was that most of them had moved on already.
Well Alan Alda and Mike Ferrell were not remotely interested.
Neither was David Ogden Stiers.
In short, she was as closely identified with the character as Alda had been with Hawkeye.
Custom image by Ana Nieves
Sally Kellerman played Margaret in Robert Altman’sMASHmovie.
Despite this, the executives at Fox felt they could bring back Margaret with a new actor.
Mercifully,the notion of recasting Margaret or any otherMASHcharacter was dropped.
As Levine mentions, bringing back Gary Burghoff’s Radar resulted in one ofAfterMASH’smore affecting episodes.
CBS doomedAfterMASHby pitting it against ratings juggernautThe A-Teamduring its second season.
Hunnicutt may have givenAfterMASHa ratings bump, but it wouldn’t have masked the core issues with the offshoot.
Instead,theMASHspinoff attempted to merge comedy and drama and fell flat on both counts.
That wasn’t to be, and it instead became one of TV’s most notorious failures.
It doesn’t quite deserve that legacy, butwhileAfterMASH’sheart was in the right place, the execution was lacking.
