Combat - Season 2, Mission 2

Rating:
Summary: This program has unique introductory music
Review: Many programs of the era had their own introductory music and this program was no exception; the music was by Leonard Rosseman.

They always start out with "staring Rick Jason and Vic Morrow." Instead of great sweeping epics this program focuses on a single squad with their trials and tribulation with confronting and some time co-operating with the Germans in WWII. Each episode is one hour and has to oppose a problem and a solution in that time. This was back in the time of professional privates.

In 1967-1968 Vietnam if you were lucky certain areas actually had TV broadcasting at 1600 hrs. You guessed it; this was one of the programs. I wonderer what the locals thought of the episode?

This would be a good series to own. Not just for the nostalgia, but the personal conflicts portrait in the program are still with us today.


Rating:
Summary: Excellent Second Season!
Review: When I reviewed the first season DVD set of COMBAT, I said that it truly warranted a 3 1/2 star rating....now however we are getting into the swing of what COMBAT was to become....the second season is so chock full of terrific episodes that it is hard to know where to begin....I'll highlight a few episodes from this season:

1. Bridge at Chalon - Lee Marvin stars as a demolition expert who is attached to Saunder's squad in order to blow up a bridge..Marvin chews nails in this episode, and we get to see clumsy Little John in action...

2. Doughboy - Eddie Albert is a shell shocked WWI soldier who mistakes Saunders for the HUN

3. Long Way Home - Richard Basehart plays a sadistic German Officer who captures the Squad..Simon Oakland excels in a broken prisoner, who does not want Saunders to make waves...

4. The Wounded Dont Cry - COMBAT tried to be fair and show that there were German soldiers who were humane, and not depict all of them as stereotypically evil, and this episode, regarding a German Medic, illustrates this point...

5. Anatomy of a Patrol - A classic in my opinion, as James Caan plays the Seargent of a German Squad who tries to outwit Saunders...think of how Kirk and Khan played a game of cat and mouse in Star Trek II as well as Robert Mitchum and Kurt Jurgens in the WWII submarine movie The Enemy Below, and you have the comparisons to this episode....

6. What Use are Bugles Blowing For? - A great 2 part episode of a Britsh Squad protecting a Railroad station that will soon be encircled by the Germans...it is up to Saunders to convince the officer to abandon the station...great action and a very good character study of USA and UK soldiers...

7. Gideon's Army - a very poignant episode concerning Saunders squad discovering a concentration camp...very sensitively handled...

Those are are few of the fantastic episodes of the second season, and actually I only can think of one episode that I thought was totally awful. It was called Infant Of Prague and was concerned with a bunch of stupid nuns, who by the end of the episode, you were starting to root agianst them...anyway that's it....enjoy....highly recommended!!!