User Reviews

Plot description but no spoilers. This episode sports pretty good writing, a tight plot about German vengeance weapon going off course and crashing in Sweden. All plausible. Paul Burke as Col. Gallagher and Chris Robinson as Sgt. Komansky are called upon to fly an unmarked transport aircraft, the venerable Douglas C-47, along with David Frankham as the British RAF group captain who dislikes "Yanks." A realistic plot, even good explanatory lines from Richard Anderson's Brig. Gen. Doud saying the parts of the guided missile are needed to track down the manufacturing plants so they can be bombed. That's how it was done. Then the V-2 rocket shown in the opening becomes a V-1 guided missile, used by the German Luftwaffe in the real World War II. The V-2 was an actual rocket - the forerunner of American military rockets like the Redstone missile ("our" Germans designed it for the U.S. Army after they were grabbed at the end of the war). The V-1 would be akin to a cruise missile with a crude guidance system. The V-1 used an "air breathing" jet engine, and the V-2 used liquid rocket propellants - aka rocket fuel. Totally different weapons ... the V-2 footage was probably added in the harried post production after the episode was filmed. Still, the acting and plot is pretty good, even if some of it was cribbed from the 1966 racing film "Grand Prix," notably Frankham's "drunk" subplot.

This episode and the previous ones are among the worst of the series. I think the show had about run its course and now to make new and unusual plots, they tried more outlandish material...and this was outlandish.

When the episode begins, Sergeant Komansky is provoked by a drunk British officer...but Komansky doesn't belt the guy...though he deserved it. Later, Komansky learns that the abusive drunk who hates Americans is a supposed missile expert who is to help Gallagher retrieve a German V-2 that went off course and landed in neutral Sweden.

This brings up several big issues. First, is it possible that the only expert who can help Gallagher is a drunk who obviously has a major case of PTSD?! No...and getting someone else would have been the only logical solution. Second, while IMDB talks about the V-1 program, and clearly the plot of this was written as if they were retrieving a V-1, the archival footage they showed is of a V-2....a VERY different sort of weapon. The V-1 is like a flying missile...the V-2 is a massive rocket...and never would have landed and been retrieved, as it would have crashed and exploded by the impact....a V-1 MIGHT have glided to Sweden...possibly.

Overall, the episode just seemed sloppy and I was happy when it ended.