“AfterMASH” focused on Colonel Sherman Potter (Harry Morgan), Maxwell Klinger (Jamie Farr), and Father John Mulcahy (William Christopher) with the trio of supporting characters reuniting at a hospital in Missouri following the Korean War. It premiered in September of 1983 just seven months after the “M*A*S*H” series finale. The turnaround time was quick and, while the first season did okay in the ratings department, the second season took a nosedive. It was dead in the water after 31 episodes — one of which never even aired in the U.S.
To Gelbart’s point, this show didn’t have someone like Alan Alda’s Hawkeye or Wayne Rogers’ Trapper to lead the way. In the book, Christopher also shared his take on the series and what went wrong. While he didn’t seem thrilled to talk about the experience, the actor largely echoed Gelbart’s take on the whole thing.
“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.”
The actor also suggested that there were character issues along the way. “The idea that Mulcahy had a drinking problem just didn’t seem to work,” he added. “One of the first things we did was get rid of his hearing and his drinking problems.” Whatever the case, CBS didn’t hit it out of the park like NBC did with its “Cheers” spin-off “Frasier.” They can’t all be winners and this one simply didn’t pan out.
