It was an ensemble series enough as it is. You can't make everyone happy. Does Timothy Brown (Spearchucker Jones) or his friends come on these boards to complain?
That said, Alda's ego could get insufferable and ran transparent through the post-Blake years of the showparticularly up to when Linville left.
I actually appreciate the final years of MAS*H more because Alda gets humbled a bit.

"Respectfully, not EVERY MAS*H character "was allowed to grow and mature" There were several who weren't developed. One of them was Odessa Cleveland's character, Lt. Ginger Bayliis, the African-American nurse.
Ms. Cleveland, a personal friend of mine, was in only 32 of the 255 episodes, covering seasons 1 - 3 and some of season 5. Then, her character myseteriously disappeared without explanation, never to be seen again."
No kidding, you know her? Well, it is true, she could've been expanded and perhaps a fitting second female lead. The show was in need of a second female lead. (sarcasm:) Oh, but God forbid they take ANY attention away from Alan Alda! That's also why Rogers and Stevenson left.

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http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/624/ this is a great commercial.

That would of been a great spin off! man the possibilities

I've watched MASH all my life, and I find that, even though I love the show, I'm a little bit bored with it. One of the few treasures I have left is the study of Larry Linville in the role of Frank Burns. I am constantly amazed by how talented he is. It takes a lot to create such a hateable character. But his work is genius.
It's a shame that they ran out of ideas for him - and that Frank seemed to run out of steam after Maraget got married. I think it would have been a lot of fun to see Frank back home, getting kicked around by his wife, bringing his war experience home with him and lording it over everyone around him in the new hospital he works at. That might have made for a great spinoff show. Do you remember when Hawkeye and the gang watched Frank's home movies? I'd like to see more of that marriage.
What do you think?

I just posted this to another topic, but I think one of the all-time flubs in any series was the wasting of Linville's talent and the broadening of Burns as a full character. A great run in the series would have been the growth of Frank Burns every other character was allowed to grow and mature, but not Frank and I think Alda and the creative staff missed a great opportunity there. Burns coming to question authority, and not follow so blindly, would have been an excellent commentary on America in the 1950s, as well as the late 1970s.
Still, would it be MASH if Frank became a great guy and good friend to Hawkeye? Fun to speculate but would we really want to change that?
I, too, would love to have seen Linville in the last episode of MASH or at least as a returning character again. He did get promoted; what's to say he wouldn't have wound up in the Korean theater again?

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