User Reviews

Actress Nita Talbot again plays the Russian spy Marya, once more visiting Stalag 13 with her newest German officer-boyfriend-we guess, returning to involve Hogan in another crazy scheme that makes no sense, particularly because Hogan's life is in almost instant jeopardy because of her actions.

This time General Count Von Waffenschmidt is her officer friend and he appears wearing a briefcase chained to his wrist. He tells Klink (with Hogan & Co. listening on their speaker in the barracks) that he and Marya will leave for the Russian front in the morning and he will sleep in Klink's quarters that night.

Hogan immediately figures he has to know what is in the briefcase, so he AND Newkirk slip into Klink's quarters (Klink is out with Marya, who for the first time acts like she is attracted to him) and almost as soon as they start to open the case, the general wakes up and holds a gun on the pair. He has them put in the cooler after telling them that when he returns from Russia, they will be turned over to the Gestapo. It seems he is trying to catch all of Marya's contacts, believing her to be working for the Allies.

Hogan comes up with a plan that involves Carter posing as a German general, recruiting five POWs for a "suicide mission" to the Russian front. About the only comical scene in the whole episode is Carter making demands on Klink and picking his five men, all to be outfitted in German uniforms, including Kinch, as we shall ignore the fact that very few black men were soldiers in the German army during this war.

Klink is ordered to go along and be in charge of the operation. Carter's general character says he is returning to Berlin, after directing them to be on the train tomorrow morning-the same one the real general and Marya are on.

On the train, Marya tells Hogan the plans the general are carrying are not important-they already have them. She just wants Hogan to get him out of the way. All Hogan has to do is hold a gun on Von Waffenschmidt and make him think he will be blamed for the plans being stolen and that his best bet is to defect. He agrees.

The train has already been commandeered by Hogan's men, who are making it go backwards all the way back to Stalag 13. Details of the general's defection are not mentioned. The mission for Hogan's men, Klink is told when awakened, has been scrapped. And that's it.

Parts that made no sense: Hogan not realizing the possibility of a trap involving the briefcase; Marya not trying to talk to Hogan earlier to give him a clue as to her purpose. She waited for him to contact her on the train, never thinking he might not have made it.

Even the part about the general wanting to trap all of her contacts didn't make sense. Once Hogan and Newkirk are caught, their companions might contact Marya, or her contacts as far as the general knows, and prevent him from catching anyone else.

And this mysterious general getting Klink to go along with 5 of his own prisoners in German uniforms, begin told nothing about this "suicide mission" was preposterous.

We had to endure a couple more scenes with LeBeau insisting Marya is as pure as the falling snow. This time he got to talk with her for about 7 seconds, more than last time. She virtually never looks at him or talks to him, yet he treats her like his fiancee.

This is the third time Marya has come to the camp, each time with a different German officer/boyfriend. Each time she puts Hogan in terrible jeopardy which could have been fatal. Each time she has no plan other than to get Hogan to help her. This time they didn't blow up anything, or steal any information, or pass along any valuable equipment to the Underground. All they did was get a German general to defect, under fear of death from failing in his duty. I ask, was he defecting or really just agreeing to become a German POW?

At any rate, the episode was almost laughless, save for Carter. With a cockamamie plot, it needed some laughs to keep us from thinking about the plot. Since we got so few, I can only give this a 3.