User Reviews

From the outset, Branded is an absolutely terrific episode and, off the back of the also excellent Menace from the Deep, it showcases the true diversity of David Croft and Jimmy Perry's considerable writing talents. While Menace from the Deep had been a superbly orchestrated series of comic set-pieces, Branded is a more emotional, dramatic episode with a hefty, progressive message at its centre. That's not to say it isn't also funny. It opens, for instance, with a great scene with the platoon practicing the art of stalking an enemy, which builds up to Mainwaring's arrival beautifully. But the core of Branded is a deadly serious examination of courage and prejudice, as Godfrey's revelation that he was a conscientious objector during the First World War turns the whole platoon against him. Though Frazer is the bully who coerces the more sympathetic members into freezing Godfrey out, it is Mainwaring's unflinching aggression that proves most disturbing. His response to Godfrey's news is funny at first but by the end of the same scene, his utterly hate-filled "Get out!" is chilling. This is compounded by his stated intention to humiliate Godfrey at every opportunity.

Writing a script that pushes its characters to such unsympathetic extremes is risky as it could prove difficult to come back from, but Croft and Perry are careful to provide a way to bring things full circle for everyone. They situate Mainwaring's reaction in both a wartime context and within the overwhelmingly masculine culture of the time: "A man not wanting to fight? It's not normal." In turn, lest any viewers share too heavily in Mainwaring's viewpoint, they make Godfrey's desire to withdraw from the Home Guard utterly in keeping with his sweet nature: he found a mouse in his pantry and felt completely unable to kill it. Amidst this social commentary, there are plenty of laughs, from great dialogue ("This is war, Wilson, not Sainsbury's") to a scene in which Mainwaring and Hodges try and assert authority over each other by standing on higher boxes, which recalls a similar idea involving barber's chairs from Chaplin's masterpiece The Great Dictator. It all culminates in a brilliant twist which proves that heroism can be just as easily demonstrated through compassion as aggression. The final lines of the script are both very funny and thematically resonant in a way that puts a cap on another virtually perfect half hour.