User Reviews

During WWII the Soviet Union had originally been allied with Germany until Western Europe fell, notably France, in May 1940. Eventually Hitler decided to attack the Soviet Union which became their (Germany's) eastern front. After Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941), the United States entered the war and provided military aid to both Great Britain and the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease program.

This episode involves a Soviet commander coming to the Pacific theater to review the capabilities of PT boats for use against the Germans and their U-boats in their cold water port (since the Soviets had not yet declared war against Japan in 1943). (So this is not a goof as mentioned below.).

This episode memorializes the uncanny alliance of the U.S. and the USSR (the latter who lost over 2 million soldiers against The Nazis) yet in the post war spent four and a half decades as antagonists during the Cold War.

21st century viewers should understand the irony of the historical context in this episode.

In this episode, there is a Russian Captain making the way to Taratupa to learn about training of PT boats. When the Russian Commander, Krasni, arrives at the base no one was informed that the Commander was a woman. And much to the chagrin of Binghamton, the Commander is to train with McHale and his crew.

But when the crew of the 73 learns that this woman is a hard handed and strict Commander, they do things so that she will complain and be assign to another unit. Binghamton finds out about the complaints and at first thinks a court-martial may be in order. But when he finds out that the Russian Commander was going to take the crew to an Arctic city called Murmansk, he pleads for the Commander to stay with PT 73. He thinks he has finally got rid of McHale and his crew.

The story was above average to this point but then took a turn into more of a love story than was unexpected. The actors did a nice job a projecting the characters and the plot was fairly interesting. With another ending this show could have been much more entertaining. But it is what it is, just average.

Typical MN fare with gags and laughs, made unwatchable due to the gawdawful "Russian" accent of Sue Ann Langdon. Nina Talbot's overdone accent on Hogan's Heroes was bad enough, but good grief, this was SO bad, phoney, and annoying that I simply can't watch this episode.