User Reviews

The last episode in season two begins with Hogan sending an undercover agent out through the tunnel. But because of a problem the agent is captured and Klink arrest him as a spy.

But after the arrest some strange things begin to happen to Klink. A shot comes through his window and then an explosion that comes close to killing Klink. So now Hogan puts the thought into Klink's head that someone is out to kill him. Hogan names the unknown suspect 'Mr. X'.

Klink is so scared that he gets Hogan to stand-in for him as Commandant as they await Mr X's next move. Hogan dresses up as Klink and even received a visitor from the SS concerning a very secret meeting that will happen at the Stalag the following day. That meeting sounds important not only to Hogan but also to the Allied effort in the war.

Another pleasurable episode that has all the material needed for a good show. Werner Klemperer makes this episode funny as his character thinks someone is out to get him and that person may even be the agent that he arrested. An entertaining episode to round out the second season of the series. Season three starts soon and if this show is any indication, its going to be a good third season.

Like an errant schoolboy scrambling furiously just before class to do the homework he should have done the night before, Phil Sharp appears to have slapped together his script for "The Reluctant Target" just before director Bob Sweeney began to shoot it--and this sorry excuse for a "Hogan's Heroes" episode deserves to be shot on sight.

Underground contact Pierre (Theo Marcuse), who is carrying sensitive intelligence on German troop movements, is caught while leaving Stalag 13, home to Colonel Hogan's intelligence and sabotage unit operating under the oblivious nose of German camp commandant Colonel Klink, who mistakes Pierre for an escaping prisoner. In a reheated slapstick routine from "A Klink, a Bomb and a Short Fuse," the POWs conceal Pierre's notebook and .45 automatic pistol from Sergeant Schultz during his incompetent search of them, with Hogan throwing them onto the roof of Klink's office. In broad daylight. With no one noticing.

Later, as Klink now considers Pierre to be a spy, Sergeant Carter and Corporal LeBeau retrieve the notebook and pistol, which discharges when it hits the ground, with the bullet going into Klink's office, where Hogan convinces Klink that he's being targeted for holding Pierre--

--You can almost smell the desperation as Sharp frantically throws together what he can recall--and can't recall--from earlier episodes, hoping to concoct a convincing enough effort to fool the teacher. Cutting to the chase, Hogan agrees to pose as Klink while the scaredy-cat real commandant cowers in his living quarters, fumbling to draw out his Luger at the slightest provocation, then brandishing it like Don Knotts would soon be doing as the shakiest gun in the West. Twice. Laughing yet? Don't worry. It gets worse.

SS General Brenner (Larry D. Mann) shows up, having chosen Stalag 13 as a meeting site for three top German commanders in the not-so-immediate vicinity. Naturally, Hogan wants to get the details even though he won't be allowed to be in the room, so he and the Heroes knock up a makeshift bugging system to capture and relay this sensitive information to--

--It's here where we must stop and examine a couple of the gaping plot holes through which you can drive the 15th Armored Division. First, where is the bug the Heroes had already planted in Klink's office? Ivan Dixon does not appear in this episode, so Sergeant Kinchloe is not on hand to plug in the coffee-pot listening device?

When Brenner tells Hogan, as Klink, about the three visitors, he doesn't tell him who they are but does tell Hogan from how far they'll be traveling to get to Stalag 13. Why? So the Heroes can show how clever they are by plotting it on a map and deducing who the visitors might be? Rendered academic when they show up and Brenner introduces them all to Hogan/Klink. Oh, and they all show up in the same car, so at some point they must have decided to carpool, anyway.

Sure, there are a couple of laughs here, but, overall, this sloppy, slapped-together slapstick doesn't stick. Worse, seeing as "The Reluctant Target" is the last episode in season two, it doesn't bode well for "Hogan's Heroes" going into season three. Failing grade for Phil Sharp. Not even an E for effort because he didn't make any.