Plot: In a two-part episode in black and white, Clete Roberts returns to conduct more interviews with the personnel of the 4077th.

Just got done watching the first half of this one but jeez what a piece of ••••. A much of old clips that looks like a bad clip show. And boy does the age show on this episode I'm not sure how they did the clips for this but the film looks horrible, like the worst copy that was tucked away in the vault or something.

btw, the word that got ****ed out was cr@p.

The thing I've always liked about this episode is that the syndicators left in scenes in the clips which they had removed from the original episodes. There's a few extra bits of Hawkeye's ranting during the liver/fish riot in the mess tent, as well as Radar's trying to convince the Icore dude that they really are being shelled.

that is true, and I made up for the rest of it. I like the original episode when the reporter came. Kinda interesting, but I'm not sure this is the return he deserved.

There is a message on my DVD regarding this episode. It states that the masters for this (originally shown as a one-hour special) had become so degraded that they were "unworthy" of being on the DVD, so they went with the syndicated, two-part version. I'm not certain if this means that syndication cuts are still in effect. I watched it last night and I didn't notice any extra bits that I had missed in syndication.

BTW, why would these masters have degraded where others have not? Is it because it was black and white film, rather than color?

In the newsreel segment of this ep, the helicopter picking up the wounded at the front is of a different type than the ones we normally see pick up wounded in the series.

Much of the earlier black and white shots of the 4077 look to me to have been taken from previous eps. I'm pretty sure the scene where Radar is helping bring a patient into OR is the one where the Corporal tells B.J. to do the best he can, he's (the patient) is from Iowa. B.J. tells him not anymore. It sure looks like it. (Even if it in black and white.)

This episode takes place on October 9, 1952. This is about a month after Colonel Potter took command of the unit. Unfortunately, the timeline established by previous seasons and eps, make this unlikely, if not outright impossible. The first time Clete Roberts appeared at the 4077^th was also most likely in 1952.

One of the things I've enjoyed about watching these DVDs is that I can turn off the laugh track. However, for this ep, in the clip segments, the laugh track apparently cannot be turned off.

I haven't noticed this before (and maybe I should repost it on the appropriate board) but in the clip from "Adam's Ribs", in a close-up shot, Radar can be seen taking a bite of food. In the next shot he isn't eating.

In the montage of "going home" clips, there's one of Margaret asking Henry to approve her transfer. Uh, she wasn't trying to go home. She wanted to be assigned to another unit, IIRC.

Some of Clete Roberts' questions seem to be recycled from the first "Interview". Particularly the questions of "How has the war changed you?", the question about how close the MASHers are to each other and what they do for relaxation, the memories they will have of Korea, etc.

I'll have to go back and watch it again, but wasn't Mulcahy's anecdote about the doctors warming themselves from the heat from a patient's open wound originally shown in "The Interview"? The way the Padre looks and where he's being interviewed does not match up with the earlier segments of him in this ep.

The end theme to this episode a totally different one from other eps. It's more mellow and sounds more like the opening theme.

There is a message on my DVD regarding this episode. It states that the masters for this (originally shown as a one-hour special) had become so degraded that they were "unworthy" of being on the DVD, so they went with the syndicated, two-part version. I'm not certain if this means that syndication cuts are still in effect. I watched it last night and I didn't notice any extra bits that I had missed in syndication. - D.K. Henderson

Some numbers - watched individually, "Our Finest Hour" is comprised of two 24 minutes eps. Together, it's about 45 minutes. "Commander Pierce" was a 25 minutes ep. "Welcome to Korea", another one hour ep, was 50 minutes long. So, I'd say there's quite a bit cut from "Our Finest Hour". This angers me because one of the things I've really been looking forward to with these DVD sets is being able to watch these eps whole and uncut. That's no longer true. Personally, I wish they'd've included the uncut version, no matter how deteriorated the master is. Even if they added it as a DVD extra, I'd still be happier.

"All that good whiskey shot to hell."

Why are the clips in this episode so low quality? When you watch the episode the clip comes from, they look ok. What did they do to these clips to make them look so weird?

Well, if they had to have an episode where the original masters were damaged so that they had to show a (possibly cut) version, at least it was a throwaway episode like this one. I'm sure most of you feel the same way about clip shows as I do, and even the framing story re-used a gimmick (the newsreel interview format) that had already worn out its welcome.

I do think that the master being B&W probably had a lot to do with it. I remember seeing this episode sometime in the 90s, and the quality of the film used surprised me. I think that, when they originally filmed the B&W segments, they went out of their way to use the same type of film that 50s newsreels used. It looked almost too much like it to be coincidence, especially since they couldn't have touched it up the way they can today.

Now, a 50s newsreel was probably copied a few times and then left in archives, and even some of those can't be remastered without errors. Is it really so hard to believe that an episode of MASH, which was probably copied over hundreds of times, might not be about to disintegrate?

That said, there's no excuse to not get the clips from the other remastered episodes except laziness.