The Best Moments of TV: My List (Part 1)

I've been watching a lot of TV episodes from my collection lately and marveling about how good some of them are. I decided to make a list of the episodes that had the deepest impact on me over the years. The eps tend to be on the emotionally hard hitting side, but don't worry, I'll start slow, with a few oldies but goodies.

M*A*S*H - "Dreams"

I was a big fan of this show when I was younger, thanks to my mom, although at the time I didn't get a lot of the jokes, or even the context of the humour. I do remember that the humanity of the characters showed through to me even then; the fact that they were all trapped in that war, the hopelessness, constantly being called upon to go above and beyond, and somehow managing to get through it.



There are so many good episodes of this show, stories that were emotional, but rather than pick the obvious one (the one where Henry Blake is killed off at the end) or the finale, I chose 'Dreams'. I doubt many people would have picked this for their lists, but I remember being particularly impressed with this one when it aired. Basically, the plot is a 36-hour non-stop barrage of wounded soldiers in the OR, and the surgical team works like crazy to get through them all. At various points in the episode, the main characters fall asleep for very brief periods and we are privy to their dreams.

Margaret Houlihan dreams of being with a lover in a bed in a field, until he gets up in the middle and marches away with a line of soldiers, leaving her alone with a pile of wounded men who have suddenly appeared there. BJ Honeycutt dreams of dancing with his wife, Peg, in the OR until he is called away to operate. Klinger sees himself on an operating table through the window of his favourite deli in Toledo. Col. Potter rides through the fields of his home on his favourite horse, Sophie, sees himself as a child and hears his mother calling him in for dinner.



Perhaps my favourite dream is the one that Winchester has, where he sees himself as a magician, performing tricks for the OR personnel, but when a wounded soldier is brought in, rather than operate, he simply does more tricks, which of course don't help the man. the soldier dies on the table a moment later, right in front of Charles with everyone looking on. As the body is carted away, Charles desperately tap dances waving sparklers which is read as a vain attempt to 'take it back' or somehow make himself appear better in the face of his failure as a doctor. There are some very nice shots in this dream and an especially nice close up of Charles with beads of sweat as he realizes the futility of what he's doing.

Finally, Hawkeye's dream finds him being addressed in the mess hall as though he is back in medical school. When he cannot explain the procedure for reattaching a limb, the professor tells him to remove his arm which is then confiscated (they use mannequin arms). Winchester removes his other arm and it's thrown into a lake where he find himself in a boat among a sea of other limbs. Finally he comes upon a stretcher containing a wounded man, and of course he cannot operate now because he's armless. It's very disturbing when you allow yourself to get into the feel of the sequence.



The contrast between the real and the dream states in this episode is very jarring at times (much like real dreams or nightmares can be) and you can tell the director, actors, screenwriters and filmographers has a lot of fun working on this one. They experiment with sets, costumes, camera angles and sound effects and it's all very avant garde when you look at it as a whole. I thought it was very effective at representing the underlying disparity of the characters and what they were forced to experience in their daily lives in Korea.

All In The Family - "Edith's 50th Birthday"

Like Mash, All In The Family had more than its share of great episodes. The show is widely regarded as being groundbreaking, and one of the first shows to deal with tough topics like racism, prejudice, homosexuality and getting away with it because of the Archie Bunker character -- being surrounded by people who contradicted his opinions and viewpoints made what he had to say seem perhaps less offensive because of the way he was portrayed, and because everyone around him was the exact opposite.

But apart from Archie, One of the best eps I've seen of this show was "Edith's 50th Birthday", because of the subject matter and it's portrayal in the context of a comedy. Some of the most effective scenes in TV and movies are the ones that mix comedy and sudden calamity because you are caught off guard. So on the occasion of Edith's birthday, when she is found alone in the house while her family is out preparing for her surprise party, you aren't expecting for her to be attacked by a rapist.

Posing as a detective, she unknowingly lets the man into the house, and he explains that there have been reports of a molester in the neighbourhood. He soon drops the act as he describes the assailant as being very much like himself. The man becomes more forceful (but not as much as someone in real life might -- it's clear they wanted to tone down the rape angle, the so-called rapist comes off as being almost polite at times) and pushes her down. She tries to dissuade him as he starts to remove his clothing by explaining that she's 'as old as Lindburg's airplane' and even offering him a cup of coffee. The next few minutes come off as very awkward as the man clearly wants to do this but Edith is rambling about how she has to be at her surprise party at 6:00.



When the man holds her down and starts his advance, the phone rings and Edith says she has to answer it because it's Archie who knows she is home - if she doesn't answer he will think something's up and come back to check on her. He allows it, but pulls out a gun and says to get rid of him, wherein Edith starts to panic. It's not Archie after all but her freind Cybil whom she promptly gets rids of. The man forces a kiss and Edith says she's gonna throw up. She runs into the kitchen and he is close behind pulling the shades. She says she has to go the bathroom, he follows her. She tries everything to stall him but to no avail. he eventually gets wise and ties her arms together.



When archie returns to the house and finds the door locked, the man pulls the gun again and tells her to say she'll be there in a minute. He threatens to kill them both unless she gets rid of him - he hides in the closet. A very difficult scene comes next when Archie rambles on about the punch bowl he needs, clearly unaware that Edith is close to tears and in serious trouble. He leaves, Edith breaks down and the man emerges from the closet.

Up to this point, Edith has mostly been shown as a 'dingbat' and not the most intelligent person in the world. But she does have brief moments of clarity and this episode shows one of them. When she smells something burning in the kitchen, she runs in and finds her cake smouldering in the oven. He tells her to take it out, and she does, but then jams the burning hot pan right in his face. He screams and tries to grab her, and she knees him in the crotch and pushes him out the door. Then she hightails it out the front door and over to Archie at the party. While they all sing Happy Birthday she cries on his shoulder, and no one is aware of what happened, until part two that is.



Because this show was taped in front of a live audience, there is a lot of misplaced laughter in the soundtrack. I think this is because they really weren't sure where or how far they were going to take this premise, weren't sure they were even supposed to laugh, and were really generally uncomfortable with what they were seeing. But that was exactly what I think the writers intended, so you can infer that they suceeded in what they were trying to say with this screenplay. Also, the writers wisely broke up the tension by cutting away to the scene of the party now and then. Given that this was probably the first time that rape had been openly fictionalized on prime time TV, they wanted to give the viewers a break, to prevent them from turning the channel due to the uncomfortable scenes with Edith. But there is a payoff for enduring the tough to watch parts, evidenced by the live audience's reaction to Edith's action and escape -- they cheer the loudest I've ever heard them cheer during the entire run of the show.