Hogan's Heroes: The Complete Third Season

A few minor changes crop up in the 1967-68 third season of this long-running sitcom, but none that significantly alter its appeal. Actor Stewart Moss appears with some frequency as Olsen, another Stalag 13 prisoner who works with Colonel Hogan (Bob Crane) when one of the other regulars is missing (obviously, the veteran cast members needed a week off here or there—although it wasn't easy for writers to explain or compensate for the absence of characters supposedly confined in a prison camp!). The 30 episodes compiled here operate along the same lines established during the show's first year, with the scripters occasionally reaching into the history books for plot gambits. For example, “D-Day at Stalag 13,”which finds Hogan promoting a deception aimed at persuading the Nazis that the impending invasion of Normandy will take place elsewhere, has its origins in the real-life Allied policy of telling soldiers that D-Day was planned for Calais, in case they were captured and questioned by the enemy. The real-life phenomenon of prison-camp turncoats receives a comedic airing in “Carter Turns Traitor,” wherein Carter (Larry Hovis) pretends to abandon his fellow captives in an attempt to learn the location of a Nazi chemical plant targeted for destruction by the underground. Another snappy episode is “War Takes a Holiday,” in which Hogan briefly manages to convince Klink and visiting Gestapo officers that the war has ended—a ruse designed to trick them into releasing newly captured prisoners with valuable information. Despite its age, the image quality is decent on this set, with DVD extras including a clip of Werner Klemperer on The Pat Sajak Show, and a photo gallery. Recommended. (E. Hulse)