The Impostor

Lt. Hanley, Caje. Kirby and Littlejohn are escorting Capt. Roberts from the Intelligence Sector in a secret mission through the woods. Out of the blue, the captain is hit by a friendly fire from soldiers that are hunting down a German prisoner that has escaped from them. Capt. Roberts assigns Lt. Hanley to accomplish his mission and explains to him that he must encounter three American specialists (locksmith, cartographer and infrared photographer) to get photos of top-secret maps in a German outpost. While heading to the house, they find a German officer dead but Kirby identifies and tells that he is indeed an American sergeant. Now Hanley needs to find who the impostor in the specialist team is. When he meets a minefield specialist, his doubt about the identity of the impostor increases. Who is the Impostor?

"The Impostor" is an engaging and tense episode of "Combat!". The storyline is well-written and keeps the mystery to the very end. It is funny to see Lt. Hanley ordering Littlejohn to protect the rear and calling him Peabody, the real name of the actor. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "O Impostor" ("The Impostor")

This is one of the best written episodes I have ever seen. It doesn't show the fights that warriors regularly engage in. It explores a subtle way to advance the war objectives - identifying an impostor that could sabotage a very crucial mission.

Lieutenant Hanley shows us that a leader is not only courageous, but a tactician. His strategies to flush out the imposter is fluid yet witty at the same time. Furthermore, one's individual mistake in the past can be construed as an element of suspicion or character flaw that, in this case, makes you a spy. Finally, Lt. Hanley's men, Caje, Littlejohn, and Kirby, as usual, show their loyalty and intelligence in order to assist him complete their mission.

It's really impressive how the screenwriter gave us insights of the minutiae of war.

With Vic on vacation, Rick is thrust into an unfamiliar situation -he's got to pinch-hit for an injured Captain on a special mission with three experts, one of whom may be a German infiltrator posing as an American soldier. Later a fourth suspicious character joins them adding to the mystery.

Kirby, Little John and Caje are along as helpers. It takes place on wintry snowscapes, all artificially staged in the studio.

Like a whodunit, the viewer follows with Rick any clues that come up. In place of the series' usual action and violent combat, this is a very talky, fairly static show in which tension and suspense are sustained. Overwritten script is a minus, artificially and constantly pointing the most suspicion at each one of the four suspects in turn, more of a mental game than a believable story. And solving the mystery comes as an anticlimax, very unsatisfying.

Suspense and intrigue are embodied in "The Impostor." Lieutenant Hanley gets stuck leading an intelligence mission after Captain Roberts is accidentally injured. Time is of the essence and the mission must be carried out immediately; there's no time to turn back.

After Kirby identifies a dead GI in a German captain's uniform, Hanley knows his mission has been infiltrated. The infiltrator sets a fire while all are sleeping in hopes of drawing German intervention.

Character development is excellent among the entire group, a testimony to fine screen writing by Kay Lenard & Jess Carneol. Each actor plays their role to produce a synergistic effect on the mission. The story was well researched and thought out; it flows smoothly every step of the way. Rick Jason makes an excellent mission leader and great intensity comes through in his performance.

I'm critical of 2 scenes which I felt Director Roley could have rectified ahead of shooting. In the first, the German captain is listening to Hanley & the squad from behind a virtually cover-less pine tree; he'd have been spotted immediately. In the second, the squad is crawling alongside a couple of German machine gunners who could not miss spotting them. Director Roley should have been a little more imaginative to make the scenes more believable. Other than these 2 items, the story is very believable.

A lack of heavy artillery and/or combat scenes is mitigated by high suspense levels throughout. And it was fun trying to figure out the impostor. Overall, "The Impostor" was very well done.

A Combat epsiode that plays out more like a mystery than a war drama. Quite enthralling as Hanley has to uncover a German impostor in the unit's midst.