Lentorama 2009: Great(?) Moments in Catholics on Television

September 20, 1978: McLean Stevenson puts on the collar.

None of the actors who left M*A*S*H early were able to find anything close to that show's success in later projects. About the best any of them did was Wayne Rogers, who found his greatest success not on stage but in the market. McLean Stevenson was no different, as his first post-Henry Blake role, as Father Daniel Cleary in the short-lived NBC sitcom In the Beginning attested.

Father Clearly was a traditional priest who would have much preferred a sedate parish to the storefront church in Baltimore that he finds himself at in the show's pilot. He's teamed with a streetwise nun who grew up in the neighborhood, and for all of her success in dealing with the locals he spends most of his time trying to get out from serving with "Atilla the Nun."

The show lasted a month before getting the axe. It was no Hello, Larry.