M*A*S*H: The Comedy That Changed Television, directed by John Scheinfeld, is a documentary that examines the classic 1972-83 series M*A*S*H and its enduring appeal 40 years after its series finale became the most-watched non-sports broadcast ever. Scheinfeld combined clips with never-before-seen interview footage with many of the show’s stars — Alan Alda, Mike Farrell, Wayne Rogers, Jamie Farr, Loretta Swit, William Christopher and Gary Burghoff — as well as executive producers Burt Metcalfe and Gene Reynolds. Rogers, Christopher, Reynolds and Metcalfe have passed on since Scheinfeld did those interviews about a decade ago, and he fills in the rest of the perspectives on the show with archival interviews from others who are also no longer with us: creator Larry Gelbart and stars Harry Morgan, McLean Stevenson, Larry Linville and David Ogden Stiers.

The Gist: The documentary examines the show’s origins, from the novel by Richard Hooker and W.C. Heinz, to the 1970 Robert Altman-directed film that inspired the series. Gelbart, Reynolds and Metcalfe have great respect for Altman’s vision, but they wanted to do something different, something that not only was comedic but really examined the fact that these people were stuck in a horrific war trying to patch young men up so they can just go back out and kill or be killed.

Scheinfeld then examines each of the primary characters from the perspective of the people who played them: Alda’s Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce, Rogers’ “Trapper” John McIntyre, Swit’s Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan, Linville’s Frank Burns, Stevensen’s Henry Blake, Burghoff’s Walter “Radar” O’Reilly, Christopher’s Father Francis Mulcahy, and Farr’s Maxwell Q. Klinger m. There is frank discussion of why both Stevenson and Rogers left after the third season, as well as clips from the shocking third season finale, “Abyssinia, Henry,” where Henry Blake is discharged, but doesn’t make it home after his plane is shot down.

Then the replacement characters — Farrell’s B.J. Hunnicutt, Morgan’s Sherman Potter, and Stiers’ Charles Winchester — are discussed (Stiers replaced Linville after Season 5), and how the new characters were completely different than the ones they replaced, giving the writers new challenges.

The final segments of the documentary are devoted to the controversial topics the show covered, format-breaking episodes like “The Interview” and “Point Of View”, and the 1983 series finale, “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen,” which drew an audience of over 105 million viewers.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The film is a pretty straightforward retrospective, along the lines of what we’ve seen about the careers of Carol Burnett, Dick Van Dyke and others.

Performance Worth Watching: Everyone gives great insights into their characters in the documentary, but the insights of Metcalfe, Reynolds, as well as the archival interviews with Gelbart, are invaluable.

Memorable Dialogue: Stevenson says in an archived interview that “I got too big for my britches” when he decided to leave the successful series because he thought he could get his own show (he got about a half-dozen of them, none of which made it past two seasons). Burghoff said he “hated” how one-note Farr’s character of Klinger was until they gave him more responsibility later on (ironically, after Burghoff left the series in Season 8).

Sex and Skin: Nothing, except scenes where Hawkeye was “romancing” nurses or Burns and Houlihan were carrying on their illicit affair in the show’s early seasons.

Our Take: Could you tell by the writeup above that M*A*S*H is one of our all-time favorite series? Because of that we were excited about the prospects of hearing the cast of the series discuss the show so many years after it ended, but we were skeptical that the film’s 90-minute (without commercials) runtime could be comprehensive enough to convey just how influential the series was.

But Scheinfeld managed to at least touch on most of the aspects of the series that made it so special, and it was the concentration on the characters themselves that helped with that.

Scheinfeld recently went on the podcast hosted by Ken Levine, one of the show’s writers during its middle seasons, and told him that the interviews he did with Levine and some of the other show’s writers for the documentary were cut at Fox’s request. While it would have been fantastic to get those writers’ perspectives — we’d love to see those interviews as streaming special features at some point — much of that perspective was covered by Gelbart, Reynolds and Metcalfe, as well as Alda, who was heavily involved in the show’s writing.

One of the reasons why we enjoyed getting the actors’ perspectives on their characters is that most of them evolved over time. A big example is Swit’s character, whom Farrell said “went from Hot Lips to Margaret” mostly due to Swit fighting to give Houlihan more depth. And for characters that didn’t evolve, like Frank Burns, we got honest observations about them from both the producers and the actors who played them; Linville left the series because he pretty much took Frank as far as the character could go.

The interviewees did touch on the fact that the show debuted while the U.S. was still involved in Vietnam, and the parallels between the show’s themes and the protests over what was going on there were inevitable. But that topic was just touched on, as Scheinfeld rightly gave more time to the show’s creative impact on TV, from its subject matter to its format-breaking episodes.

If we have any issues with the documentary, they’re only quibbles; some revolutionary episodes were only shown in clips, and there was no mention of the memorable secondary and recurring characters that showed up during the show’s entire run. Early characters that disappeared quickly are never mentioned, either. But when you only have 90-minutes to cover 11 seasons and 251 episodes, it’s inevitable that some things will be left out.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Whether you’re a longtime fan of M*A*S*H or just recently came across the series, M*A*S*H: The Comedy That Changed Television is an informative and entertaining review of just what made the series one of the best ones ever made.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.