Dad's Army (TV Series) Shooting Pains (1968) User Reviews

Shooting Pains

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 16 August 2018]

I always felt that the Dad's Army (2016) film was a bit smutty in places that made it more like a Carry On film.

In this episode Barbara Windsor turns up as a music hall sharpshooter Laura La Plaz. She pretends to be a male soldier so Mainwaring's men could win a shoot off with another troop. The winners get to meet Winston Churchill.

As the men in Mainwaring's unit are pretty hopeless at shooting, this was an idea Walker had at a night out at the theatre. However it is Frazer who comes to the rescue but he needs to bob about a bit when he takes aim.

Windsor gives the men an eyeful with her stage costume. I liked how Jones tells Captain Mainwaring that he could not do target practice on Saturday as his dad is coming around for tea.

Jimmy Perry the co-creator of the show turns up as a typical spiv club comic of the time period. In short he is funny as a dose of the clap!

A very fine round off to Series one.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 13 January 2020]

Winston Churchill is due to visit the area, The Platoon are chosen as Guard on honour, until Major Regan sees them shooting, he is back, giving shooting instruction, and he suggests The Eastgate Platoon take the honour, a competition between the two is set, the winner to take the honour.

The humour has been quite different in the early years, a few cusses, and a slightly more grown up tone. Any show worth it's fee featured Barbara Windsor, and The Carry on Star, she's great as the crack shot. Pike is also so much better early on.

There is a surreal moment on the shooting range where they play The Wizard of Oz, it's very zany.

It's been a great first series, this is a fine finale, no wonder it lasted so long. 8/10

Carry On Home Guard

[grantss · 9/10 · 14 August 2022]

The episode that convinced me to continue watching the show. Until now the jokes had been few and far between and the humour more of a dad joke variety. This episode veers more towards the absurd and it's hilariously funny.

The episode is notable for featuring Barbara Windsor, of Carry On movies fame. She pretty much plays the same part here as there, a curvy blonde in a skimpy outfit who lands up in some weird, risque situations.

Babs' Army

[phantom_tollbooth · 5/10 · 2 June 2023]

The first series of Dad's Army has a nice narrative arc, with the establishment of the Home Guard, the ongoing attempt to obtain decent weapons and uniforms and the gradual cementing of the platoon as a functioning unit who care about each other as well as the cause for which they're fighting. While still frequently funny, this continuing storyline gives the first series a nice undercurrent of dramatic weight as well. The problem is that the arc is largely complete by episode five, which means the final episode of the series tries something a little different. In anticipation of some of the more outlandish later episodes, Shooting Pains is a broader farce which involves the platoon dressing up a female gunplay expert (a young Barbara Windsor) as a man in an attempt to win a shooting contest. I've always thought of Dad's Army as a series that has aged comparatively well because it largely avoided the smuttier angle of so many of its 70s contemporaries. This episode skirts the edge of that approach a little more, with Babs bringing some Carry On style humour along with her, including an inevitable moment where her chest pops out of something. It's not too overdone thankfully but the odd tone does seem to have slightly thrown the cast for a loop, with a lot more instances of lines being stumbled over. Though it sometimes works, I've never been a big a fan of when Dad's Army goes super silly and Shooting Pains is an early example of this. The ending, in which the platoon achieve the position of guard-of-honour for the Prime Minister on his visit to Walmington-on-Sea, actually brings the series to a satisfying end by completing the arc following the inception of the Home Guard through to their first big achievement, but it takes a rather circuitous route to get there. An odd ending to a generally good first series that showcases a sitcom of great potential slowly finding its feet.