User Reviews

The episode begins when Klink has ordered that one of barracks become vacant as some very important prisoners will be making their way to Stalag 13. What no one knows at the time is that the German have captured three American women and will temporarily be housing them at the Stalag until they can be transferred to Berlin. The reason that these women are so important is that were doing an act for the American infantry when an air-raid started. The women jumped into a jeep and became disoriented and before long they were in a bunker that was loaded with Germans. They accidentally stumbled upon a secret rocket plant. The German now want to hold the women, to keep the whereabouts of the site safe, till after the war.

Hogan has a plan where he will get the women out of camp plus alert the Allies to the location of the rocket plant. But with a nasty SS agent, Captain Heinrich, ready to take the women in the middle of the night- it will be a difficult task, some may even say a drag.

The story was a clever way of getting a plot that was suitable for this series. Women have accidentally seen an enemies secret location and then they are held to keep the location safe. For me, the scene where Klink and others are caught by the SS agent in the women's barrack is comedy at its best. A quality story that was nicely written. Good watch.

Built around what the presence of women can make on prisoners of war deprived of female companionship, "I Look Better in Basic Black" plays it mainly for modest laughs in a contrived story by writer Arthur Julian that delivers a serviceable narrative but little else to recommend it. Well, not unless you count the dames--but even they get short shrift.

When Stalag 13 commandant Colonel Klink orders Barracks Three vacated to make room for three special prisoners, ranking POW officer Colonel Hogan makes his protest to him, then learns from Sergeant Schultz that SS Captain Heinrich (Edward Knight) is bringing in three American women, and when Hogan calls for volunteers to dig a tunnel to their barracks, the response is hardly encouraging--until he reveals that the new prisoners are women.

Indeed, the distaff trio are civilians who were entertaining Allied troops when they were attacked by the Germans. (We'll leave aside the real-world logistics that test that premise.) Making their escape, they got lost and blundered into an underground complex that turned out to be a secret German rocket base. Ah! Now we know why the SS has them in custody and will be taking them to Berlin for further questioning, which means that Hogan's Heroes have to act fast to rescue them. But when the tunnel, dug in haste to reach the "birds" (as Newkirk would put it), collapses, Hogan has to dress up another solution--and fast.

Guest stars Jean Hale (the Bombshell), Jackie Joseph (the Ditz), and Jayne Massey (the Brain) have little to do except look pretty and act as the straight women for mugging by John Banner, Robert Clary, Richard Dawson, and Werner Klemperer. Similarly, Knight, in the second of the ten supporting appearances he made during the series' run (playing a different character each time), is wasted--with his stern appearance and demeanor, he could play a German who looked like he meant business. Hogan's solution falls back on a hoary trope, which is kind of a drag.