User Reviews

It is getting crowded at Hogan's camp when seven prisoners that escaped from Stalag 5 show up at Hogan's door. With the mass escape the Germans have extra patrol all over the area and getting the seven prisoners out of camp is difficult. It has been two weeks and the men are starting to get stir-crazy.

In comes General Burkhalter that brings the Commandant from Stalag 5, Major Strauss who had the mass escape, to Klink's office so that he can learn why Stalag 13 has never had an escape. But when he finds out that Klink has been stealing from camp funds it looks like Klink may be facing a firing squad. Hogan needs to come up with a plan where he can get the prisoners back to London and also save Klink's job.

It is always nice to see a fresh script in a situation where scripts seem to run together. So it was nice to see the cast having to deal with something different other than blowing up a local bridge. This show was interesting from beginning to end and made for an enjoyable watch.

The tunnels under Stalag 13 are about to become "Standing Room Only" in writer Laurence Marks's sharp, credible blending of corruption, blackmail, and attempts to sabotage the German war effort by Hogan's Heroes, the Allied intelligence and sabotage unit led by Colonel Hogan operating from the prisoner of war camp where commandant Colonel Klink, while pursuing the affections of "local tomato" Sofia Lindemann (Victoria Carroll), has been poaching from the camp treasury and gets his hand caught in the cookie jar.

The Heroes have been harboring eight prisoners who escaped from Stalag 5 in those tunnels for two weeks, and they're getting restless--and careless, as one of them (Eddie Firestone) was nearly shot while trying an impromptu escape. Why the delay? A German army division set to deploy to the Eastern Front has instead been pressed into security service because Stalag 5 has been a sieve for escaping prisoners.

Seeking to address the problem, General Burkhalter brings Stalag 5's commandant, Major Strauss (Noam Pitlik), to Stalag 13 to learn some lessons in prison-camp management from Klink, famous for never allowing a successful escape, while Burkhalter takes command of Stalag 5 himself.

Already resentful at being upbraided by Burkhalter, Strauss also finds Klink's smug arrogance irritating. However, since Burkhalter granted him full access to Klink's resources, he notices odd entries in Klink's books; then, bribed by a cookie, Sergeant Schultz unwittingly and unthinkingly digs Klink's hole by explaining them as "loans" Klink made to himself to finance his romance with the tomato--loans that he of course fully intended to pay back but somehow just never got around to doing. You know how it goes.

So does Strauss, who is ready to drop the hammer on Klink until Hogan, now burdened with a batch of recently downed fliers that nearly doubles the number of escapees he must process, offers to help Klink get Strauss off his back. Why the generosity? By now that rationale is obvious: Losing Klink as Stalag 13's commandant will very likely jeopardize the Heroes' mission because of the very real possibility that he would be replaced by, you know, a competent officer, and it is a critical moment in Marks's narrative.

Having previously stressed the Hogan-Klink relationship, an uneasy one yet one that also displays a cautious, sometimes contentious camaraderie, Marks, also taking advantage of the rapport Bob Crane and Werner Klemperer had developed during the series, crafts an exchange that lends plausibility to Hogan's intricate scheme to have Klink help Strauss get back into Burkhalter's good graces--at the cost of abandoning his attempt to blackmail Klink, of course--while also unloading his backlog of escapees waiting to return to England.

Marks, who unlike the other "Hogan's Heroes" writers who scripted Klink as a mere buffoonish caricature, played up Klink's vanity and desire to stay alive during the war by serving in a home-front capacity without looking like a complete idiot. Thus, Klink remains suspicious of why Hogan would want to help him, so Marks--who never forgot that the Germans were the enemy in the most devastating war in history--has Hogan deliver the zinger disguised as faux flattery: After disclosing that his men hold a "fond affection" for Klink, Hogan then reveals the sentiment he inspires in them: "There goes Klink. He's embarrassing, but he's ours."

While Carroll is simply catalyst eye candy in the frame, series veteran Pitlik, in the sixth of his seven guest appearances, delivers another solid outing as does Forrest Compton, whose just-rescued flier speaks fluent German, enabling him to masquerade as a German officer who must tap-dance during a dicey moment in Hogan's scheme to repatriate the escapees; this precedes the practiced preparations the Heroes enact for the operation, underscored by the martial urgency of Jerry Fielding's incidental music, as director Jerry London executes Marks's script with smooth precision, making "Standing Room Only," broadcast near the end of Season Five, a breath of fresh air in an increasingly stale, stuffy serio-comic formula.

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?

Another hilarious episode from Hogan's boys and their inept German captors.

REVIEWERS NOTE: I really despise reviewers who tell others what they should and shouldn't write and how they should use this site.

It's even more irritating when they use phrases and terms, the meaning of which they clearly do not understand. For instance, look up "confirmation bias" before trying to use it; you are only embarrassing yourself.

Another hilarious episode from Hogan's boys and their inept German captors.

REVIEWERS NOTE: I really despise reviewers who tell others what they should and shouldn't write and how they should use this site.

It's even more irritating when they use phrases and terms, the meaning of which they clearly do not understand. For instance, look up "confirmation bias" before trying to use it; you are only embarrassing yourself.