Yeah, I posted that to my faceplace page yesterday.
I liked the interplay between the cast with the Frank Burns character, but there was no growth or subtlety to it. It was all hard punch slapstick. When they did try to expand Frank's character in conjunction with the expansion of the show's focus to be more introspective and dramatic than strict comedy, it just didn't work.
That's where the Charles Emerson Winchester character, and Stiers, were perfect for the show. The character is far more empathetic than the Frank Burns character, and instead of always being the underdog and whipping boy for Hawkeye and BJ, was a very worthy adversary.
The episodes that focused on Winchester's humanity were exceptionally well acted. I'm thinking of two specifically: the episode where Charles suffers a near death experience and tries to find out what, if anything, is beyond life, and the Christmas one where he buys candy for the orphans and later finds out that the director of the orphanage sold the candy on the black market to buy basic necessities that would serve the orphans for months.
They never could have done those kinds of episodes with Frank Burns.
