Post by drystyx on Mar 22, 2024 15:14:59 GMT
He was "kilt", cause if you're "killed" it's not as devastating, and no one cares, but everyone cared about Col. Blake.
When you first saw the episode, if you saw it when it first aired, surely it didn't surprise you that he was kilt at the end.
I expected it all along, mostly because it was so Hollywood (TV being still somewhat Hollywood) to kill any characters that you could relate with, and leave only alien characters you couldn't care less about, which made movie watching a big bore for most movies.
After all, Col. Henry Blake was almost a carbon copy of the character William Holden played in Toko Ri. We know how that ended.
He was the one everyone related to on the show. Everyone else was a cardboard cutout. Well, Trapper John was realistic. He was what a real liberal doctor in the Korean War would be like, still angry when the Korean pulled the plug on a dying American soldier. Igor was probably the most three dimensional of the non coms. The other three were total stereotypes.
But Blake was the one whom people felt was there in their place. Today, such a level headed person could never be put in command, because the patients are running the asylum, but perhaps in the Korean War he could have been, although Potter was a more likely personality for the commander position. That's why the later shows were superior. They had more credible characters in Potter and Winchester.
So, was anyone not actually expecting it to end with Blake's death? The only surprise I got was that so many people were surprised by the formula Hollywood ending meant to depress people.
When you first saw the episode, if you saw it when it first aired, surely it didn't surprise you that he was kilt at the end.
I expected it all along, mostly because it was so Hollywood (TV being still somewhat Hollywood) to kill any characters that you could relate with, and leave only alien characters you couldn't care less about, which made movie watching a big bore for most movies.
After all, Col. Henry Blake was almost a carbon copy of the character William Holden played in Toko Ri. We know how that ended.
He was the one everyone related to on the show. Everyone else was a cardboard cutout. Well, Trapper John was realistic. He was what a real liberal doctor in the Korean War would be like, still angry when the Korean pulled the plug on a dying American soldier. Igor was probably the most three dimensional of the non coms. The other three were total stereotypes.
But Blake was the one whom people felt was there in their place. Today, such a level headed person could never be put in command, because the patients are running the asylum, but perhaps in the Korean War he could have been, although Potter was a more likely personality for the commander position. That's why the later shows were superior. They had more credible characters in Potter and Winchester.
So, was anyone not actually expecting it to end with Blake's death? The only surprise I got was that so many people were surprised by the formula Hollywood ending meant to depress people.
