Hogan’s Heroes – The Complete Third Season
Picture: B-
Sound: C+ Extras: C- Episodes: B-
Hogan’s Heroes - The Complete Third Season has the
same fine transfers of the episodes as the previous sets, while the show stayed
on track. By this season, the trapped
nature of the situation became problematic and even a tad stale. However, the show still had its highlights,
including a great Nina Talbot performance in The Hostage episode. However, when the show got into its serious
moments, those were betrayed by the hard reality that the Nazis were far more
dangerous than a sitcom of the time could show.
Even with that, I stick by my statement on the show I will
repeat again. After arguing why the
show was not absolutely insensitive or pro-Nazi in the last review, as well as
the misguided revisionist thinking on the show the unreality of Political
Correctness has given the show. Again,
this is a comedy, and I would argue one that was never derogatory of any of the
characters, though The Nazis were buffoons.
The sitcom trappings made Klink and Schultz too likable, but that is the
convention and only because they are patsies can Hogan and company fool
them. This is a dark premise and the
intelligence of the teleplays actually are smart enough to play on this without
denying the darkness of the situation, as much as a sitcom launched in 1965
would let them do it. The half-hour
slotted episodes for the 1967 – 1968 ran 30 shows this time and were still
written better than many shows we see today.
The 1.33 X 1 full frame image continued to be shot on film
and holds up very well for its age. The
first episode is shot in black and white, but the rest of the series is in
color, and this color looks really good.
The series continued to be shot by cinematographer Gordon Avil, A.S.C.,
who had to come up with an approach that would make the show look distinct for
the new color televisions that had just arrived to the market. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono sounds good for
its age. The laugh tracks show their age,
recycled from radio of the 1930s and 1940s, while the new music and dialogue
fare better, even in this mix. We get
some extras again, including stills sections on all DVDs and Werner Klemperer
on the ill-fated Pat Sajak Show discussing the show and his life. That is not as good as the last set, but
better than the first, which had none.
- Nicholas Sheffo
