Plot A: Hawkeye and Col. Potter work on patients with identical injuries, but Potter's patient has to be operated on again because of something Potter missed. Shaken, Potter covertly calls in Sidney Freedman to discuss the matter.
Plot B: Fed up with his slobby roomates, Charles decides to become even slobbier to try and prove his point.
Hawkeye and B.J. don't come across very well in this episode. Charles is trying to make a point that should be obvious to the veriest dunce, yet it seems to fly right over their heads.
I noticed that when they started trashing the Swamp, it was B.J. who first crossed the line from simply making a mess to actual destruction. I was amazed that Charles sat quietly by while B.J. and Hawkeye destroyed his precious records.
Twice in the episode we hear the it said "Fisher has the same wound" as another patient (I notice that even D.K. mentions this in his plot summary).
The first of these if Fisher's friend, talking to Margaret. How would a patient with a belly wound who appearently has no medical training have the knowledge to even ask about the wounds.
The second time was when Potter talks to Sidney. Potter has the medical knowledge, sure. But his medical knowledge should be enough to say that there are no identical wounds. Since Potter's patient had a piece of shrapnel lodged under the liver that broke loose when he coughed, (what they all say is an easy miss) it sounds as though the injuries were very different. (I will give you that this might not be a nit... just Potter not thinking clear because if his depression). Still, I find it strange.
One more question... Where does Charles get sardines? I know that when he decided on a whem to be a slob that he couldn't go around the corner to the 7-11, and he couldn't pop to Seoul for the PX... and I don't think that sardines were part of his regular care packages from home (kippers, yes... sardines, no) Where did they come from?
In this episode, Potter said that he's 62 years old. As such, he would've been born in approximately 1890, meaning he would've been approximately 27 years old when the U.S. joined World War I. However, in episodes past, Potter describes how he falsified his age to join the Army to fight in WWI - said he had big thighs for a boy his age, which IIRC was 17 years old. If the latter description was valid, Potter would've been approximately 52 years old in the Korean War, not 62.
Potter's age was definitely given inconsistently. In another episode, he remarks that Mildred had cried a bit when they first got married, but that "If I had let a few tears bother me, I'd have dumped Mrs. P back in 1913." That makes it impossible for him to have been so young as to have lie about his age to fight in World War I, in 1917/18--if that were the case, he would have been 13 when marrying Mildred in 1913. Thus, the 1890 date seems more plausible: he married Mildred when he was 23, and joined the service in 1917, at the age of 27. So in 1952, he's 62 (as stated in this episode) and has been in the Army for 35 years and is now on the verge of retirement. In yet another episode, however, mention is made of Potter's needing only a few more months to retire. But normally you need only 20 years in the military to retire. Today, you're not allowed to serve more than 30. So Potter would have already been eligible for retirement, since at no time is it ever implied that he has had a break in service: his medical training was via the Army, in "San Antone," so presumably he's got 35 years of active duty under his belt--despite having joined at the relatively late age of 27.
This is probably the worst we've seen the Swamp in a long time. Normally it's not that messy.
Charles can't be that neat if his shower shoes are by Hawkeye's bunk. I mean, they pretty much couldn't have gotten there by themselves unless Charles put them there. Could they?
Whose golf club is Charles using to pick up the dirty clothes? Can't be Hawkeye's, can it? I mean, we haven't seen Pierce play golf since the Henry Blake days of the series. Come to think of it, we haven't seen Pierce throw a football or do anything more athletic than move a pawn in a game of chess.
Between the master shot where the P.A. announces incoming wounded and the close up of B.J. talking about looking back on "this nightmare", the positions of Hunnicutt's hands and the book he's reading changes.
Potter's afraid he may be "a lot less perfect than (he) can accept". As far as we know, the Colonel has only made one (very understandable) mistake. If we had seen two other such minor mistakes, then his statement would have more weight. As it is, he seems to be making a mountain range out of a single molehill.
And didn't we see Potter go through something similar in "The Young and the Restless", the episode with Captain Simmons?
In Potter's tent, there's a chair just about in the middle of the room, that's normally not there. The whole purpose of the chair's placement was to give the Colonel some place to sit while talking to Sidney. But the edge of the bed would have done just fine, and in real life I'd imagine that what's Potter would have done, used the edge of the bed. (In other words, the chair seems to be there for staging purposes.)
Pierce is still Chief Surgeon at the 4077th, isn't he? Well, wouldn't that give him the authority to release Fisher, whether he was Potter's patient or not?
You know, normally the camp ignores what goes on in the Swamp, even if it's Charles reading a scarce newspaper ("Communication Breakdown"). In this ep, as the surgeons have their little trash war, everyone in camp suddenly become voyeurs.
Colonel Potter's been rearranging the paintings in his office. When Klinger enters the Colonel's office, you can see Potter's self-portrait of his thumb. However, earlier this season that spot was taken by the portrait of Pierce the Colonel did in "Depressing News".
Okay, so Sherman had an uncle who was a veternarian, and the Colonel went with him on his calls. So how come Potter doesn't know anything about "birthin' no bovine"? ("The Birthday Girls") Surely, in Hannibal, Missouri, young Sherman Potter saw his share of farm animals giving birth.
When Potter mentions Joe DiMaggio, his hands are clasped in front of him. In the next shot, the hands are behind him.
$3.65? That was one of the cheapest raffles the 4077th's ever had, isn't it? I mean, look at how much money Klinger was expecting to rake in for birth of the calf in "The Birthday Girls". How much betting was done on Five O'Clock Charlie. The birth of Potter's grandson. If I were Charles, I'd be insulted my beard went so cheap.
"The indrinkable chasing the inedible."