MASH TV Series

[Expat]

If you compare the first season of MASH to the last season, they are very different in flavor. The first season is Alpha, the last one is Delta.

The first three seasons were Alpha; as the IEE Alan Alda took increasing creative control of the series, it became increasingly Delta. I think that seasons 4 and perhaps 5 were a period of transition; the last ones became clearly Delta.

Hawkeye starts out as ILE and becomes an IEE; Trapper John is an ILE replaced by BJ who is another ILE-IEE. Radar is an LII who becomes EII.

Klinger is yet another ILE who became something like an IEE.

As for the other characters.

The couple Frank Burns - Margaret Hoolihan starts out as the caricature of how Alphas perceive a LIE - ESI couple. Hoolihan remained ESI throughout, but she changed from an Alpha perception of ESI to the Delta perception of ESI towards the end as she became a more sympathetic figure.

Colonel Blake is a caricature of how Alphas see a LSE - caregiving, well-meaning, but needs the help of a LII.

Winchester is a mix of how Deltas perceive a LIE and LSE, as he shifted from annoying to a more congenial figure. He started as the "Delta view of LIEs" as a more "mature" version of Frank Burns; later he became more like a LSE.

Colonel Potter remained consistently a LSE.

I can't think of clearly Beta figures; perhaps there is a bit of EIE in Frank Burns. The most clearly Beta caricature as seen through Alpha eyes is Colonel Flagg, who's an EIE enneagram 3.

[Expat]

I just realized that the Betas were represented, throughout, by the characters representing authority figures of the military establishment -- only in the Alpha period they were seen as incompetent and ridiculously pretentious, as well as slightly threatening. In the Delta period they were shown more as narrow-minded, dangerous, and insensitive.

[Expat]

I think he's another LII who becomes EII. Or perhaps essentially EII throughout.

[Creepy-bg]

huh... do think there's a changing presentation of the Koreans to match?

[Expat]

huh... do think there's a changing presentation of the Koreans to match?

Maybe -- more or less irrelevant or invisible in the Alpha period, or figures of "fun" - such as the pilot, "Charlie" - - to "sympathetic poor guys who deserved understanding" in the Delta period?

[Logos]

How would this compare with the movie version?

[Expat]

Uh -- no idea. I haven't seen the movie recently. Perhaps the movie is even more "hardcore Alpha", what do you think?

[Creepy-bg]

movie>>>tv show

[Logos]

movie>>>tv show

Yeah, this is pretty much what I think about it.

[Slacker]

This is a very good point. But I'm wondering why a show about typings of characters and alpha and delta is in "Gamma".

[HollywoodWanderer]

I would actually characterize the characters thus:

Hawkeye: ntp, I suppose entp works well enough.
Trapper John: enfj
BJ: entp
Radar: isfp
Klinger: entp
Frank Burns: entj
Margaret Hoolihan: esfj
Colonel Blake: enfp
Winchester: estj
Colonel Potter: istj
Colonel Flagg: esfj

I don't particularly think their types changed much throughout the course of the series.