Bad Day in Berlin (1968) User Reviews (4)

We leave the prison for a day-trip to Berlin

[kfo9494 · 8/10 · 28 August 2014]

Harold J Stone plays Major Teppel an officer in the German intelligent unit that actually is on the side of the Allies. He come to the prison camp needing the assistance of Hogan. It seems that a British intelligent officer, Decker, was a spy and is now back in Berlin. Decker knows all the underground names that are working in German. He knows about Teppel and also all of Hogan's operations. This could be the end of the underground if Decker tells what he knows.

Teppel and Hogan come up with a plan where they will take care of Decker before he talks with the Gestapo. With time being short, Teppel talks Klink into letting him interview prisoners in Berlin. There they will try and get into Decker's hotel room before the Gestapo arrive. Things look bad when the Gestapo arrives at the door with Hogan and Tessel inside Decker's room.

This episode lets us leave the confines of the prison fence and open up plots for the writers. Even though it is rather bizarre that they would let a Major take a truck load of prisoners to Berlin, this situation does open up for new interest. And for the viewer instead of the routine show, we get to see new situations for the characters and an entertaining episode.

Fine episode with just one small beef

[dtk5 · 7/10 · 1 September 2015]

I like this episode and its guest stars (Harold J. Stone and John Hoyt in a very limited role) and I like any episode that takes us out of the camp, but I do have one small beef. I don't like how panicky Hogan gets in the prison cell in Berlin, in the hotel room after the Gestapo man arrives, and again in the hotel lobby just before he "forgets" the briefcase. I understand that his life is in peril throughout most of the episode either because his Stalag 13 operation is most assuredly part of Decker's info to be turned over to the Gestapo or he can easily be identified as an impostor when posing as Decker.

But throughout the series Hogan and his heroes are always in peril and it is usually Hogan who always takes control and calms down everyone else when they get their backs to the wall. However here he is bordering on a panic attack and has to be calmed by Major Teppel. Just a little too much out of character for me, but still a fine episode.

One side note, I wonder what insults LeBeau was saying in French to Klink during the interrogation that made Major Teppel chuckle to himself. I'll bet it was something good!! :)

Excellent Supporting Cast

[coachanthony79 · 9/10 · 11 May 2021]

As others have commented, there is much going on in this episode and is is different than normal in that most of the action occurs in Berlin. So I wish to comment on the rather amazing cast assembled here.

First, we have John Stephenson and Edward Knight, who each appeared in at least eight other Hogan's Heroes episodes. Knight almost always as an SS officer and Stephenson cast as a scientist, spy, and various officer ranks.

Next, we have two actors who each appeared in some of the Twilight Zone's best episodes. John Hoyt in "Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up" and Harold J. Stone in "The Arrival".

I'm not sure there is another HH episode with such an extensive cast.

Shaking Hands Can Be Dangerous

[FlushingCaps · 10/10 · 18 July 2020]

This was always one of my favorite episodes, partly because it seemed like so much was happening. Instead of an episode where none of the regulars even leaves camp or faces any threat to life or liberty, we have in this episode a high-ranking German officer (Harold J. Stone) as Major Teppel visiting, then Hogan & Co. are all taken to Berlin for questioning, with the real task for the Teppel (really an American spy) using Hogan and his men to capture a German spy who has come from London and who has enough information to get Hogan's men all shot as spies and most of the Underground as well.

Teppel's plan involves drugging the German spy with a special ring, smuggling him out of his hotel in an ambulance and then to Stalag 13 where he will be taken back to England as a prisoner. But the plan goes awry when Gestapo men come to the hotel before Teppel and Hogan can leave (after the spy has been taken out) and they are to take the spy to meet a general. Hogan winds up pretending to be the spy, but he winds up between a rock and a hard place, because even if he somehow persuades the Gestapo in the lobby to no take him immediately, Teppel's backup plan can get Hogan killed when leaving the hotel.

There were many funny lines despite the fact that this plot was much more serious than usual, with a pending threat to all of Hogan's Heroes and a more immediate one to Hogan himself.

When this one started and I remembered what it was about, I started thinking, "Is this a two-part episode?" I could remember that they spent most of the show away from camp and that lots of things were happening. But they packed it all into just one episode, somehow. Funny, more dramatic than most, and memorable adds up to a 10 from this reviewer.