User Reviews

This episode is actually the first that will be the regular theme throughout the series run. In this show, we get the heroes out smarting the Germans and we get the comedy that the show is famous for producing.

The Germans have brought a new rockets into the prison camp where they think it is safe from Allied bombing. But Hogan is already on top of the matter and notifies London about the new rocket. They are going to drop some men in the area to study the weapon and report back to the Allies. But what is needed is a distraction. That is where the 'Commandant of the Year' medal comes into play.

This episode begins the trip into the heart of the series. A nice story with a well written script that takes the viewer on an adventure that is entertaining. A good episode for the third show of the series.

With its third episode, "Hogan's Heroes" scales back the broad farce of the first two installments into a more plausible and realistic scenario as "Kommandant of the Year" marks Laurence Marks's first script for this sitcom set in a German prisoner-of-war camp in which an Allied coalition has banded together as a sabotage and intelligence unit while trying to outwit their German captors.

Not that they find that hard to do as Stalag 13 commandant Colonel Wilhelm Klink and his Sergeant of the Guard Hans Schultz had already shown their fatuousness although Marks attempts to balance seriousness and satire in his tale of Hogan's Heroes needing a plan to neutralize a new V-weapon (modeled on the V-2 rocket) that the Germans have parked in the compound of Stalag 13 knowing that it is relatively safe from attempted Allied destruction since the Allies would not bomb their own men in a prisoner of war camp, the first of many times that this rationale will be used as a premise in the series.

That plan turns out to be a bogus "Kommandant of the Year" award for Klink, wholly manufactured by the Heroes based on their logistical capabilities already detailed in the pilot and reiterated here. (For example, "the boys in the shop" are making grenade paperweights, with every third one live.) Presenting the award will be an American scientist, Dr. Schneider (Woodrow Parfey), who parachutes in near the camp with three British commandos, with French Corporal Louis LeBeau meeting them outside the camp to facilitate bringing them in dressed as German officers in the award delegation, a ruse for Schneider to get near the V-weapon and photograph it for analysis.

With "Hogan's Heroes" still finding its narrative cadence and comedic tone, Marks's promising script tries some new approaches while retaining previous gambits; among the former are American Sergeant Andrew Carter's flippancy with Schultz, calling the guards "goons" while sarcastically describing his attempt to go into town for beer, and LeBeau's nautical jape when American Colonel Robert Hogan examines the V-weapon with their periscope-like viewing apparatus in the barracks, both of which, having been run up the flagpole, don't find many saluting.

The new approaches also include Marks's close scripting of the interactions between Hogan and Klink that maintain Hogan's keeping the upper hand while still keeping Klink from being a complete buffoon--a crucial element that steers away from farce and toward a more nuanced characterization that at least tacitly acknowledges that the Germans were a formidable foe and that even a comedy set in Nazi Germany during World War Two cannot be completely frivolous. Marks's sharp dialog between the two principals would become a regular highlight in his subsequent scripts, giving both Bob Crane and especially Werner Klemperer ample room to develop their characters and how they spar and pirouette during their scenes together.

That said, LeBeau's sojourn outside the wire as he meets Schneider and the commandos echoes the casual insouciance of "The Informer," the series premiere, with the Heroes seeming to have carte blanche regarding their comings and goings. And the climax does lean on the punchline, such as it is, more heavily than Marks would demonstrate as the series wore on. Marks does proffer some witty lines that underscore the smart plotting and credible characterizations his first script for "Hogan's Heroes" demonstrates, early encouragement for the series' best writer.

REVIEWER'S NOTE: What makes a review "helpful"? Every reader of course decides that for themselves. For me, a review is helpful if it explains why the reviewer liked or disliked the work or why they thought it was good or not good. Whether I agree with the reviewer's conclusion is irrelevant. "Helpful" reviews tell me how and why the reviewer came to their conclusion, not what that conclusion may be. Differences of opinion are inevitable. I don't need "confirmation bias" for my own conclusions. Do you?