M*A*S*H
The Light That Failed
TV Flash files “The Light That Failed” as hour 126 of 251 in the TV Flash guide — M*A*S*H (1972–1983) on CBS, season 6, episode 6, aired 1977-10-25, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S06E06: listed hour 126 of 251 in the M*A*S*H guide, hour 6 of 24 in season 6. It aired 1977-10-25 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “The Winchester Tapes” (S06E05). Next is “In Love and War” (S06E07).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
With supplies low, the 4077th gets a truckload of ice cream churns and salt tablets. But what it needs are light bulbs, and in the dimly lit post-op Charles makes an error for which he draws the ultimate wrath of his two surgeon bunkmates. Meanwhile, B.J. receives a mystery novel that everyone in camp reads in turn. The last page is missing and the solution to the mystery is undiscovered until B.J. calls the author by long distance.
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Light That Failed sit in the M*A*S*H guide?
S06E06 is listed hour 126 of 251 — hour 6 of 24 in season 6, season 6 episode 6.
When did M*A*S*H S06E06 air?
The Light That Failed aired 1977-10-25 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Where should I start if I cannot watch all eleven seasons?
Start with the 1972 pilot to learn the tent's manners, then jump to Sometimes You Hear the Bullet and Abyssinia, Henry. Those three hours teach the joke-to-wound contract better than a clip reel.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Eleven seasons of a network comedy that kept rewriting its own permission slip — Korea as the set, Vietnam as the aftertaste, and a goodbye still quoted whenever someone needs proof a sitcom can stop the country.
February 28, 1983, CBS did not program a sitcom. It programmed weather. Goodbye, Farewell and Amen ate the night, the morning papers, and a ratings myth executives still quote like scripture — a two-and-a-half-hour close on a Korean War tent America had been visiting since September 1972. The helicopters were already folklore. The laugh track, by then, had learned when to shut up. On the palate: canvas, cigarette haze, and a three-act clock that could turn a punchline into a casualty without changing the lighting.
Filed against
- Alan Alda as Capt. Hawkeye Pierce
Alan Alda defined 1970s television as Hawkeye Pierce on M*A*S*H, blending scalpel wit with antiwar ache until a two-and-a-half-hour goodbye stopped a nation. Actor, writer, and director of the series’ later seasons, he proved a sitcom…
- Loretta Swit as Maj. Margaret Houlihan
Loretta Swit’s Maj. Margaret Houlihan is the officer M*A*S*H had to let grow up — the Army nurse who started as a punchline and became a person inside CBS’s Korean War tent. Eleven seasons of gallows humor as appointment TV needed a…
- Jamie Farr as Cpl. Maxwell Klinger
Jamie Farr’s Cpl. Maxwell Klinger is M*A*S*H as a section-eight gag that grew a soul — dresses, Toledo longing, and wartime comedy that refused to leave him a punchline. Harry Morgan restabilized command; Farr restabilized the joke. On TV…
- Harry Morgan as Col. Sherman Potter
Harry Morgan steadied M*A*S*H as Col. Sherman T. Potter after the command shuffle — horse sense, heart, and wartime comedy craft. Dragnet-era roots as Officer Bill Gannon made him institutional memory on legs. On TV Flash he is the…
- Gary Burghoff as Cpl. Radar O'Reilly
Gary Burghoff played Cpl. Radar O'Reilly on M*A*S*H — the company clerk as the tent's nervous system, gallows humor that could hear the helicopters before the laugh track did. TV Flash files him as 4077th craft: the kid who made a war…