Chief Surgeon Who?
October 8, 1972
Written by Larry Gelbart
Directed by E. W. Swackhamer
Guest Stars: Linda Meiklejohn, Jack Riley, Sorrell Booke, Timothy Brown,
Odessa Cleveland, Jamie Farr
Synopsis: Choppers arrive at the 4077th, and the OR is soon busy with wounded. Hawkeye and Frank snipe at one another, and Hawkeye insults Frank’s surgical skills.
Later, Frank complains to Henry, and says he wants to charge Hawkeye for insubordination, failure to salute a superior officer and other charges. Hawkeye arrives, having been fetched by Radar, and strongly protests. Henry can’t take any more arguing about who has seniority in surgery, and so he appoints Hawkeye Chief Surgeon. Frank is very angry, but there’s nothing he can do about it.
Margaret is in her tent when Frank comes in to complain about Hawkeye getting the Chief Surgeon job. Margaret comforts him. Meanwhile, in the Mess Tent, a party is being arranged for Hawkeye.
While the party is in full swing, Frank and Margaret get in touch with General Barker and complain about Hawkeye, and suggest the General comes to see the new Chief Surgeon, who is currently in the midst of a wild party.
When General Barker arrives, Frank informs him that a patient that arrived has been left waiting for half an hour, because Hawkeye couldn’t be bothered to operate.
The General finds Hawkeye playing poker in the Swamp, apparently unrepentant about the patient waiting in Pre-Op. He rages at Hawkeye, who just yells back at him.
Gneneral Barker storms out in disgust and goes looking for Colonel Blake, but finds Radar in his office instead. After that, he is stopped by Klinger on guard duty.
He eventually finds Henry and brings him to the Swamp to witness Hawkeye playing poker while a patient waits in pain for him to arrive, but Hawkeye has already left for surgery.
When they arrive, Hawkeye is just scrubbing up, and he explains that he chose not to operate until now because he was waiting for the patient to have a blood transfusion and be stabilised enough for the operation not to pose a danger.
During the operation, General Barker is impressed by Hawkeye’s skill and decides that he might not be such a bad Chief Surgeon, after all.
Review: This is just one of many ‘Hawkeye gets in trouble then gets out of it by being an ace surgeon’ stories, but it passes the time well enough. 5/10
Romance Review: Nothing much to speak of, except Frank and Margaret, and who even wants to know about that? 1/10
Trivia: This episode was Corporal Klinger’s first appearance of the show.
It is also the first episode that we see Margaret peroxide her hair.
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