SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Absolutely brilliant

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

This is a 25-minute short film featuring Emmy Award winner Gary Burghoff, who reprises his Walter character for this little mix of comedy and drama. Yes I think there are certainly enough dramatic aspects in here to categorize it as such, which is also why I must say that the laugh tracks were really annoying and irritating, especially as none of the comedy in here was truly laugh-out-loud funny and I personally felt it delivered more from the dramatic perspective. I also guess that is what the makers had in mind as the movie ends with a moral question on whether to arrest a young man or not. With "makers" I am also referring to people who made M*A*S*H as some of these also worked on this pilot episode. However, it did not get picked up despite coming out immediately after the end of the very successful and lung-running series I just mentioned. And I am not really mad about it. I have never seen M*A*S*H, but judging from this short film here I have no interest in watching it, let alone a series that follows this short film. Burghoff is fine, but the rest of the cast is not really good. Not recommended.

"W*A*L*T*E*R" was a painfully misguided spin off from "M*A*S*H"--as was "After M*A*S*H". The big difference is that "W*A*L*T*E*R" only lasted one episode and was apparently only shown to half the United States. I don't think they bothered showing it to everyone because they realized they had a bad idea in the pilot.So what is so bad about the pilot? Well, they made the character pathetic and sad--and this is supposed to be a comedy! And, to top it off it had a VERY obtrusive laugh-track--one that OFTEN was used during the saddest and most awful moments in the show. Let me give you a few examples--all of which you learn about through flashbacks. First, Walter loses his farm (ha, ha, ha). Next, he gets married and his bride disappears--running off with another man (ha, ha, ha). And, finally, he goes into a pharmacy to get some drugs so he can commit suicide (he, he, he). Whose idea of funny was this? Was the show written by a serial killer?! Now I am NOT saying you shouldn't watch it--heck it's only 25 lost minutes in your life. But I am saying that I can see exactly why the network didn't pick it up--the show was maudlin. But, if you like the idea of Radar as a cop (talk about miscasting) and want to see Victoria Jackson before she was a regular on "Saturday Night Live", then by all means give it a shot. Just don't say I didn't warn you!

Taking "Radar" out of Walter O'Reilly removes much of the character's charm. On M*A*S*H, Radar was a young man from Iowa, stuck in the middle of a war, trying to keep the 4077th running without losing his mind. Although W*A*L*T*E*R attempted to recast this fish-out-of-water concept by making Walter a rookie cop, there is little to differentiate Walter O'Reilly from any other police officer new to the job. The few remnants of his precognition seem out of place and his relationships in the pilot are generic or silly.What made the Radar character so wonderful on M*A*S*H was his interaction with the rest of the M*A*S*H cast — particularly Colonel Blake and Colonel Potter — and his mix of naivete and cunning. In W*A*L*T*E*R, the character is older and more cynical, and placed in the stale trappings of a by-the-book sitcom. Gary Burghoff did his best, but he had very little to work with.

It's really a pity this show didn't get picked up. I really think it had some potential. I'm a big M*A*S*H fan and Radar was my favorite character in the whole show and I do realize I might be a bit subjective, but for this show really seemed to be able to get some laughs. I don't know why AfterMASH was picked for a while and this wasn't but I really wish it was the other way around. I enjoyed seeing Potter, Mulcahy and Klinger in that one, but it seemed to me they veered in a different direction from the one they ought to have gone towards, so I guess that's one of the reasons people didn't like it too much.