The DVD Review in association with MTZ Magazine 

MASH 
Season Three | Three Disc Set. Released by Fox Home Entertainment. Available to buy now.

Without question one of the most popular sitcoms of all time MASH is being released season by season by Fox. Based on the movie of the same name MASH first aired in 1972 (at a time when the Vietnam war was still going strong) the show followed the lives (both professional and personal) of the doctors and nurses working in the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War of the early 1950’s. Pretty revolutionary back in the day with its comedic approach to matters of life and death MASH still has much to say today, best of all it’s fantastically funny.

The 24 episodes of season three (spread over three discs) can be classed as the last of the original MASH, by the end of this season Colonle Blake (McLean Stevenson) would be gone to be replaced by the more sedate Colonel Sherman Potter (played by Harry Morgan, who incidentally turns up as an insane Brigadier in the first episode of this season).

Alan Alda and Wayne Rogers as Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John are the real stars, a pair of laconic, laid back, out to make life as bearable as possible, girl chasing but caring doctors. The duo shared a tent with the supercilious, everything by the book Major Frank Burns (played brilliantly by Larry Linville). Other leading characters include Head Nurse Major Hotlips Houlihan (Loretta Swit) who is involved in a relationship with Frank, although the pair are determined that no one should find out about it despite the fact that everybody does, then there is Captain Radar O’Reilly (Gary Burghoff) right hand man to Colonel Blake and blessed (or cursed) with the ability to hear a chopper approaching at 50k’s and the cross dressing Corporal Maxwell Klinger who was desperate to get posted home.

You can’t fail to enjoy MASH and there definitely needs to be some in everyone’s collection. The only downside to this release is it’s canned laughter track and its lack of extras.