Dear Sigmund
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"Dear Sigmund" is the 7th episode of the fifth season of the television series M*A*S*H. It first aired on CBS on September 18, 1976.
Plot
Psychiatrist Sidney Friedman (Allan Arbus) is having trouble working after one of his patients, who he thought he had helped, commits suicide. He believes "there's something special" about the 4077th, so he goes to a poker game there one night and decides to remain for several weeks, to work through his feelings.
During his time there, he writes a letter addressed to the deceased Sigmund Freud. In the letter, he describes the members of the 4077th and recalls stories about them; for instance, Klinger pretends to have been hit in the head by a helicopter blade and speaks only Arabic, and Radar processes the accidental death of an ambulance driver, including writing a letter to the dead man's parents. The main 'action' during the camp's downtime is when people are victimized by an unknown practical joker. B.J. Hunnicutt turns out to be the joker; at one point, he fills Frank Burns's air raid bunker with water and enlists Sidney's help by having him shout "Air raid!" to lure Frank into the trap.
Revitalized, Sidney ultimately departs the 4077th, realizing that happiness is "like springtime at MASH. If you can't see it or find it, you just go ahead and make it", and he's "coaxing a little bud to grow" inside himself. As he drives off, he finds himself the latest target of B.J.'s jokes.
Production
Alan Alda described "Dear Sigmund" as "one of [his] favorites". Gene Reynolds disliked the plot because "if you ask an actor to play depressed, it'll be depressing for the audience". Alda was "convinced that [Arbus] really was a psychiatrist" because of his good acting skills.[1]
Alan Alda won two awards for the episode: the Directors Guild of America's Award for Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series in 1976 and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series in 1977. Alda was also nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series in 1977; William Jurgensen was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography. Samuel E. Beetley and Stanford Tischler were nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Film Editing in a Comedy Series and for an American Cinema Editors' "Eddie Award" in Editing.[2]
References
- ^ Alan Alda on writing the M*A*S*H episode "Dear Sigmund" and the performance of Allan Arbus as M... YouTube. August 26, 2009. Retrieved July 2, 2014.
- ^ Wittebols, James H. (June 2003). Watching M*A*S*H, Watching America: A Social History of the 1972–1983 Television Series. McFarland & Company. p. 194. ISBN 0-7864-1701-3.
External links
- M*A*S*H at IMDb
- "Dear Sigmund" at IMDb
