Another month's worth of episodes of "The Doctors" has aired on RetroTV. Below are my thoughts on what has aired for the month of August 1972.
Mike and Toni still had to deal with Vito, but Mary Nell caused the most conflict. Mike was able to convince the girl's mother Lorraine, to bring her to Hope Memorial. Al was livid, and as a parolee worried that this would send him back to prison. Mary Nell was going to be placed into protective custody, but Al didn't want that so he kidnapped Mary Nell from the hospital. Mike found them, and Al shot him in the head. Vito saved Mike from a more serious injury. Thankfully, Mike's wound was so minor he didn't even need surgery. That said Mike wasn't kind to Vito for deflecting the second shot. (Mary Nell also had a toy that was extremely politically incorrect, a Speedy Gonzalez puppet she called Oscar, which is how Mike was able to find Al and the girl in the basement.) After Mike was released, and it looked like Peter Burnell returned from vacation as he was tan, things went back to normal. He and Toni continued to live with Martha. They actually showed their bedroom, the newlyweds in bed, and kissing before cutting away for making love, which was rather surprising.
Maggie and Matt enjoyed some time away with Greta, though we didn't see the girl on screen. They were in the woods, and Greta was successful at fishing, due to Mike being shot they had to return home early. While outside, Matt and Maggie made out in the grass, and we got to see them in clothing neither normally wears. They gave Lydia Bruce such a short outfit that really showed off her legs.
John was able to walk again, but at the beginning of the month he could not. His plan to screw with Nick and Althea was working for the moment. There was a scene where Steve tried to convince Nick to give Althea time to deal with her situation as she is under a lot of pressure. (It was kind of amusing for them to admit on screen the parallels of this situation to what happened earlier in Steve and Carolee's relationship.) Martha as usual was on Nick's side against John. John got Althea's sympathy when Nick went ballistic over the situation and tried to drag him out of the wheelchair. (Unfortunately, that is one of the missing episodes, Althea sees them together and then we don't see the next show.) Cathy told John the truth about her miscarriage, and he said that she still may get what she wants.
Mona arrived in the US, and wasn't good to Carolee. She hates her daughter-in-law and doesn't even know the worst part about Steve spending weeks in prison due to Dan Allison's machinations. Mona just couldn't understand why Carolee saw Steve as a playboy, while even Steve owned up to his checked past. She was upset to hear how Steve was Stephanie's father and made cruel remarks about her granddaughter in front of both Emma and Carolee. When alone with his mother, Steve told her to cut that out as she's his child too. In another act of being a snob, Mona admitted to not knowing any Spanish even though she lived in Majorca and questioned why Carolee allows her nanny Delores to use her first name. (Of course, she would as would Steve due to the whole we should use first names between doctors and staff that was part of his intro.) This month saw a new child playing little Erich (bye Lada), and a new Billy (played by David Elliott). Mona at least wasn't mean to Billy, and was interested in talking with him, which was a great thing. (In another missing episode, we didn't see Steve introduce Mona to Matt, and Matt almost mentioned prison.)
Those were the highlights of August 1972. We missed the August 8, 23, & 28 episodes, and the show was preempted on August 21 & 22 for the Republican National Convention, so we had a short month. I was really disturbed by Nick's behavior as even though John isn't in the right, becoming psychically abuse achieves nothing.
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