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Short-Lived Shows: AfterMASH
by Joel Keller, posted May 30th 2006 2:50PM
In the coming years, people will probably remember Joey as one of the worst sitcoms of all time. Why? Because it took a character from a hugely successful series, Friends, and put him in a show that was about as bland as a sitcom could get.This isn't the first time that a series that spun off main characters from a popular series has fallen on its face. In fact, aside from Frasier and maybe Archie Bunker's Place, the "falling on face" outcome seems to happen more often than not.
(UPDATE: To clarify, I'm talking about a show spun off from a hit show AFTER the hit show ends. I'm thinking of shows like The Golden Palace, Three's A Crowd, etc. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.)
Take the case of AfterMASH. After M*A*S*H ended its long run in 1983, people were still clamoring for tales of the people from the 4077th; so when plans were announced to follow three characters -- Col. Potter, Father Mulcahy, and Max Klinger -- back to life in the U.S. after the end of the Korean War, fans were overjoyed. In fact, ratings for the first half-season or so, which aired in the same Monday at 9 timeslot as M*A*S*H, were so high, the show ended the calendar year 1983 in the #1 slot.
There was a little problem, though: the show was boring as hell.
Despite the fact that AfterMASH had many of the same writers and directors as the original show, the episodes didn't crackle with the expert comic timing and back-and-forth dynamic the original had. In fact, the stories were a little depressing: Mulcahy, who went deaf in the last episode of the orginial series, developed a drinking problem over his condition, only to be saved by Potter, who had come out of retirement to adminsiter a veterans' hospital in his home state of Missouri. Klinger, who married his Korean girlfriend Sun-Lee, comes to Missouri because his relatives shun him for marrying a Korean and can't get housing because of the couple's mixed-race status.
Funny stuff, right? I mean, M*A*S*H dealt with serious issues as well, almost to a fault. But at least they could couch those issues in terms of the war that was going on around the characters. Without bombs going off and choppers with wounded coming in, the immediacy was gone, rendering AfterMASH too serious for its own good. Viewers noticed this, and as the 1983-84 season ended, the high-flying show's ratings were in a steep decline (it finished in 15th place at the end of the season).
And the casting of the supporting roles didn't work out all that well; viewers finally got to see Col Potter's wife Mildred, but she was recast between seasons one and two, as were some of the surrounding characters that were supposed to be civilian versions of Hawkeye, Frank Burns, etc. According to the show's IMDb page and Wikipedia entry, there were plans underway to bring back old M*A*S*H characters in season two (Radar already came back for a two-parter), but the show was cancelled before those episodes were written.
In all, thirty episodes were created, and all but the finale eventually aired. But for a show that started from such a high perch in September 1983, to be cancelled by December 1984 meant that CBS knew the show couldn't be salvaged. For over twenty years, it was seen as one of the most spectacular flame-outs in TV history. Now, with the failure of Joey, AfterMASH has some company in the halls of infamy.
You just wonder, though, when TV producers and network executives will start to learn from their predecessors' mistakes. If the little kid from Two and a Half Men gets his own show in five years, the answer will probably be no.
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