A-Z Characters Who Could Transform: Major Frank Burns Deserved a Better Ending

Larry Linville left MASH when he (correctly) judged that his character, Major Frank Burns, was never going to expand beyond his role as the jerk/butt of jokes. 

I think the writers failed Burns (and Larry Linville). They replaced him with the complex-from-the-start Winchester but truth is, like Howard from Big Bang Theory, Burns had the potential to progress beyond his less palatable behavior. He just needed better writers. 

From the beginning, Linville gave the character a degree of self-knowledge as well as wistfulness at others' irritation. That is, Linville allowed that Burns might be teachable or trainable. 

Here's what I think could have happened:

Frank's wife back home divorces him (she has learned about Houlihan). Frank goes off the deep end when Houlihan gets married to another cheater (another Frank but more shallow). So far, these events follow the show (more or less). 

Unlike in the show, he stays with the 4077. A woman surgeon visits. Frank falls for her 100%. (My personal assessment is that Frank's personality requires a non-abstract relationship for him to improve.) 

Unlike Houlihan, this fellow surgeon not only likes Frank: she knows how to handle him. She demands that he live up to a certain standard. She then leaves, but they stay in contact through letters. Frank goes back to his old ways sometimes. He rises above them other times. 

In other words, Frank becomes very much like Howard and like Eustace from The Silver Chair. A guy whose "better self" is in process. 

I enjoyed David Ogden Stiers' Winchester. But I don't think the problem was that the show required a different character. I think the problem was the writers didn't know how to write themselves out of the useful-for-one-purpose hole they put Frank in.