Plot: Exhausted, everyone seeks to escape in sleep, but the war keeps creeping into their dreams.

When this ep first aired, I was in my late teens. I thought it was an incredibly powerful episode.

I always wondered, at the end, why Potter was so anxious to stay awake, along with the other guys. The war in his dream was quite mild, and the dream ended very pleasantly. (Of course, it's been ages since I've seen an uncut version, so perhaps there was more to Potter's dream than was shown.)

Coupla things a friend of mine pointed out:

During his dream, Winchester's tux has bell-bottom pants.

At the end, we they decide not to go sleep, Margaret says, "I'll pour (the coffee)." But note that it's Father Mulcahy who does the actual honors.

Has anybody seen the pic of Hawk in his surgery whites working on wounded with Margaret in her bloody wedding dress? I'd just like to say that I appreciate the symbolism of Hawkeye and Margaret standing side by side with her in a wedding dress.

I thought Winchester's dream was a little strange. Well, that's not saying much. That is, it seemed inconsistent. Most of the dreams involved the characters in situations they wished they were in (Margaret married, BJ with his wife, Potter with his horse, etc. Hawkeye's was grim all the way through, but I did say most not all), before then becaming gruesome war nightmares. Does this mean that the secret dream of Charles Emerson Winchester is to become a street performer?

The magic was a metaphor for medicine/surgery.

Okay, what did the sparklers and tap dancing represent?

That's the whole point. It's all metaphor. He's doing a song and dance, and working his magic, and he still can't save the patient.

Charles has throughtout the series complained that his surgical skills were deteriorating because of assignment to the 4077th. I've always taken his dream to be a part of that fear. Also, Charles has on ocassion (when he snored) confided that it's possible that he might be no better than everyone else. Again, I think his dream symbolizes that fear.

I always thought that Charles' dream was showing something that Hawkeye has accused him of on occasion--that Charles searches for glory at the expense of his patients. Remember the episode when Charles called in a reporter after he saved a patient? He was so greedy for attention that he kept stifling the patient during the interview because the patient was claiming the reporter's attention. And he was so busy showing off that he made a dangerous mistake with another patient. That's what happened in the dream, too, only in the dream, the patient did die.

Another good bit of symbolism in Hawkeye's dream was Charles pulling off Hawkeye's arm, possibly sybolizing Hawk's fear of Charles being a better surgeon than him.

Ooh. Good one, Chris. I never thought about that.

Where's Radar in this ep? I ask because the opening credits have a listing of "Also Starring Gary Burghoff as Radar". I thought Radar O'Reilly was long gone by this point?

Margaret must be dreaming of the future. Her "dream" husband has a hairstyle that is decidedly 1970s.

This episode marks about the third time this season that General Imbrie is mentioned.

Charles once boasted, "A Winchester never sweats." Yet, when the Major wakes from his dream, his forehead is clearly covered in sweat.

If the bottles of plasma are frozen solid, how long would Klinger have to carry them inside his coat before the content of the bottles thaw? I mean, is this best way to thaw the plasma? Surely, there's another source of heat that would thaw the plasma more quickly?

I've never noticed this before, but when Father Mulcahy is hearing confession, the soldier begins to speak gibberish when the Padre starts to doze off.

Of all the dreams, Mulcahy's is the oddball. It is the only dream that does not start out where Mulcahy fell asleep. For all the others, their dreams begin in the very rooms they fell asleep in.

This is hard ep to nitpick. Because the bulk of it consists of the characters' dreams. Thus any nits can be explained away by saying they never really happened. It's not that there weren't any nits in any of the dream sequences. Mulcahy's hands are not near his Bible in the close-up shots of the book. When Charles is pulling the handercheifs from his ear, you can clearly tell the pieces of cloth are coming from behind Winchester's head, rather than from his ear. But because these are dreams, these nits don't count.

"I'm so conservative, I make you look like a New Dealer."

Regarding Charles and the sweats--he might consider it as I heard someone say once: "You sweat; I perspire." Or perhaps as I heard someone improve on the line: "They sweat, you perspire, and I...glisten."

True. But I believe in the episode, "The Winchester Tapes", Charles point blank tells Margaret a Winchester never sweats. I'll have to double check that, though.

"I'm so conservative, I make you look like a New Dealer."

When the wounded came in again at the end of the episode, Hot Lips said "Let me Pour", (the coffee)
but its the Padre who actually pours the coffee.

No one caught this?

I caught it in my Saturday, June 17, 2000 - 10:20 pm post.

"I'm so conservative, I make you look like a New Dealer."

Missed opportunity of the series: not having departed cast members show up in any of the dreams.

Had Radar not yet left the show, his dream could have featured Henry Blake.

Just before Hawkeye falls asleep at the mess table, he pushes his tray straight ahead towards Margaret. In the next shot, we see Margaret, and we see her tray, but there is an empty spot on the table where Hawkeye's tray should be. After he wakes up we can that see that his tray is touching Margaret's.