I have to say, this is a pretty disappointing episode for me to talk about. I still think Combat is always an entertaining show no matter how badly an episode's writing may be, and this can be attributed to the performances of the characters. The show is never short on interesting personalities, whether they're GI's, nazis, or civilians. The reason I say this one is a letdown is because of how poorly it handles the character of its guest star. Night Patrol begins, predictably enough, with Saunders and a few other soldiers on patrol at night. They are tasked with capturing a german, which they manage to do, but he is shot dead by another american who claims to be an officer, even though his uniform says he's just another enlisted man. Lieutenant Kranz (Skip Homeier) insists that he tags along with Saunders, even if his demeanor is a bit off to say the least. He appears very deadpan and says a lot of strange things, such as how he was able to hear the squad whispering from 50 yards away. Eventually, the men come to a cavern with some hot springs in it, and Saunders discovers a pile of discarded rifles and a tunnel which contains a scarecrow dressed in a nazi uniform. Meanwhile, Saunders' troops start to speculate about the lieutenant and start doubting whether he really is an officer. Saunders begins to question Kranz, but he only continues to speak in riddles about how he got separated from his squad and is now alone. It really starts to get creepy when Saunders eventually comes across a large amount of dead americans in the cavern, one of which has the name of the officer Kranz claims to be. He starts trying to explain himself and says he was ambushed by the germans in another section of the cave, and he was the only one who survived since he did not hold his ground. Saunders doesn't like to hear this, since he's always one to stand by his friends. Before he decides what can be done with this liar, germans start to close in on the cavern. Saunders, Kranz, and the others are outnumbered and fall back to the same area where the american squad was ambushed. When the germans enter, Saunders opens fire and kills one wielding a flamethrower. This prompts the others to start looking for an exit, and Saunders yells at Kranz to explain how he escaped from this place to begin with. He says there's an exit around a bend towards the back, and everyone runs for it. Kranz is shot by enemy fire, and with his dying words, tells Saunders that he wasn't foolish enough to run this time. Back at base, lieutenant Hanley reads off the dog tags of the dead american soldiers to his superiors. I thought this episode was decent. My main problem with it is how Homeier's character is treated. We're never given a convincing reason why anybody should care about him or who he is, since people make sacrifices in this show all the time. It also has some stupid dialogue, mostly thrown in to try and add a bit of humor, but it fails. A good example is when Kirby asks what time 0700 translates to. He's a troublemaker but not that stupid. I also didn't understand why the squad decided it was time to bolt out of the cave after they noticed the flamethrower german. For one thing, he was already dead by that point, but they act like the flamethrower itself is still dangerous after its user is killed. Maybe it would cause a gas leak in a confined space like a cavern, I don't know. Overall, Night Patrol was not really an excellent episode, but because this is the last directed by Burt Kennedy, I feel things can only get better from here.
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