Paramount produced this TV sit-com spinoff of its costly flop 1970 movie "Catch-22", directed by Mike Nichols with an all-star cast. Given the prestige of the Joseph Heller novel, it's not surprising that Richard Dreyfuss (in Alan Arkin's movie role) signed on to star following his great success in "American Graffiti", but he's just awful -irritating, not funny.
An old-fashioned laugh track doesn't help. With some Dreyfuss narration, we're introduced to him as a lead bombardier in World War II, heading for a small island off the coast of Italy to be sent home to America after having completed the requisite 30 missions bombing enemy targets. The cross-talk in the cockpit with his zany copilot Frank Welker is just awful, scoring zero laughs in imitating those famous Abbott & Costello routines.
By the end of the pilot episode, we're treated to a rather concise explanation of what Heller's Catch-22 concept initially meant: it presents a paradox: if you're gung-ho enough to want to go on deadly missions, then you're crazy and should be disqualified. But if you decide to refuse to go on such missions, that means you're sane and should be selected to go on those missions.
Where the pilot segment written by Hal Dresner goes wrong is obvious: it confuses black comedy with absurdity, insanity and utter silliness. Arkin also starred in the hit movie "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians are Coming", and one could imagine a similarly stupid Tv sitcom, with or without Dreyfuss, derived from that one. The fact that Robert Altman's "M*A*S*H" film hit spawned an even more successful Alan Alda TV series doesn't mean it's easy to do!
A weak (very weak) supporting cast includes Dana Elcar as the goofball commander of the troops stationed on the island (immediately watching him in action I realized how say Harvey Korman could have excelled in this role) and busty blonde Susanne Zenor as a nurse who flirts with Dreyfuss, or knocks him out with one punch, is basically a bit player elevated to a featured role (she ended up successful in a soap opera).
