User Reviews

Yet another admiral is coming to inspect Taratupa, Iron Pants Rafferty. (Reynolds, Rogers, Rafferty...I guess the producers have a thing for admirals having last names that begin with "R.") and this time Binghamton decides to fake an illness so he can install McHale as acting base commander, in another scheme to put him in position to fail so McHale can be transferred or court martialed-see It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, War or several other episodes for parallel plots in so far as Binghamton putting McHale in such a position.

So while Binghamton is resting at the base hospital, McHale is trying to handle missing supplies-garter belts--, stuck toilets, and other mundane things, with the help of Ensign Parker. Gruber comes into the office and while McHale is wrapped up in a phone call about a boat sighting a Japanese sub and chasing it, Gruber asks about throwing a party. Unaware that the skipper hasn't heard a word he said, Gruber leaves the office and tells the boys that McHale approved the party.

Binghamton goes into overdrive trying to get McHale into trouble. He gets a nurse (Raquel Welch) to put on her swimsuit, get her surfboard and go to McHale's office, thinking she will be there when the admiral arrives. She tells McHale that the captain thought he needed a rest and suggested surfing with her.

This is when McHale learns about the admiral's arrival. He orders her to get out of there and put her uniform back on. Then he discovers Gruber's shindig and puts the kibosh on that quickly enough to avoid trouble there-except for some native girls in hula costumes. Parker is assigned to hide them, and he chooses the air raid shelter.

The swim-suited nurse and her surfboard, before obeying McHale's orders, goes back to see the captain to tell him that McHale didn't want to go surfing because some admiral is coming. Next thing you know, the admiral is coming over to see the captain before he begins his inspection, and Binghamton has to try to hide the nurse and her surfboard.

Because Binghamton, using his binoculars, saw that the hula girls went to the air raid shelter, when the admiral arrives, he tells him about the girls in the shelter, asking him to go there first. McHale tries to lead the admiral elsewhere, but he insists on giving Binghamton the benefit of the doubt. Luckily, while they were in the hospital, Parker moved the girls back out into the trees between buildings. So the air raid shelter is in fine shape, and they next inspect the base laundry.

Back at the hospital, Binghamton tells the doctor he was faking his illness, and that he's fine. The doc responds that he's wrong. Test results now show Binghamton is suffering from "high blood pressure, acute indigestion, and hypertension." Well that doctor must have gotten his degree from a box of Cracker Jack, because even the non-medical experts in the audience know that hypertension is just the medical term for high blood pressure.

Binghamton goes so wild trying to get the admiral to see the girls that the admiral decides it is Binghamton who needs a rest. This was a decent episode overall, featuring the captain. I think 7 is fitting.