Hogan’s Heroes – The Sixth & Final Season
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Episodes: C+
Hogan’s Heroes had
just about done everything it could have with its set-up and The Sixth &
Final Season was the wrap-up of the show by the 1970 – 1971 season. You can see some fatigue with the cast and
the scripts, but in syndication, you would not notice as much. To compare, this is what I had to say about
the show and its debut season:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1962/Hogan's+Heroes+-+The+Complete
By this time, I was less enthusiastic about what did work
and the show quit before it became a mess.
This 4-DVD set has the last 24 episodes and to the show’s credit, they
ended with the cast they began with; something which seems rarer these
days. Crane went into obscurity and
worse, Dawson became a big game show star on Match Game (reviewed elsewhere on this site) and Family Feud, some guest cast has hit
shows (like Bernie Kopell) and the show continued to be popular in syndication
until the PC thing kicked in.
Now that the whole series is on DVD, there has been no
major revival of interest, but they sold well enough by the season to all be
released, so it shows people still like the show. You can bet this is one show that will never
be made into a feature film.
The 1.33 X 1 full frame image continued to be shot on film
and though it often holds up very well for its age, the copies here sometimes
look poor and ragged, with color fading and maybe less budget money was
allotted for these shows. The shows were
still shot by Director of Photography Gordon Avil, A.S.C., at this point too. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono sounds good for
its age. There are no extras here, which
has been the case for too many of these sets.
With all the success and memorabilia, there should have been more. What about the comic books, for
instance? The stars did plenty of
interviews and some are still alive. No
more interviews? Oh well.
- Nicholas Sheffo
