Hogan's Heroes (TV Series) Hogan and the Lady Doctor (1967) User Reviews

Ruta Lee does a nice job in making this episode entertaining.

[kfo9494 · 8/10 · 6 July 2014]

In this episode, Hogan receives word that the Germans are experimenting with a synthetic fuel that could change the outcome of the war. The Allies are sending Hogan a research doctor that they want planted into the building in order to spy on the research and also destroy the entire laboratory. Little does Hogan know that the Doctor, the Allies are sending, is a beautiful female named Suzanne Lechay (Ruta Lee).

With a little luck, Hogan will get the nice doctor placed in the laboratory and also may receive a little kiss on the cheek from time-to-time. But with the research going well for the Germans, the only real thing that can be done is to blow up the building and all the files. It will be up to Hogans's gang and Dr. Lechay to make sure the mission is carried out.

Even though the plot is similar to other episodes, the use of Ruta Lee and scenes away from the Stalag, really helped the show. This was more of a serious episode but there are a few funny scene like when Schultz comes across Dr Lechay in an abandon barn. Instead of capturing her, he tells her to run away. That was some nice writing. Good show.

Displaying All the Right Chemistry

[darryl-tahirali · 9/10 · 25 March 2022]

Guest-star Ruta Lee supplies the crucial element that bonds "Hogan and the Lady Doctor" into a compelling tale of danger and intrigue that also finds Colonel Hogan, the leader of the intelligence and sabotage unit operating from the German prisoner of war camp Stalag 13, having to take his orders from her in order to sabotage Germany's effort to develop a synthetic fuel that could prolong the war--if not deliver victory to the Nazis.

Neither patronizing nor parodic, Laurence Marks's near-seamless script paints Dr. Suzanne Lechay (Lee) as one of France's top research chemists who had been captured by the Germans to help develop the synthetic fuel, then escaped to hide out with the underground, and is now leading a mission to destroy their--and her own--efforts with the help of Hogan's Heroes.

Hogan is hardly happy to be under the command of a civilian, let alone a woman, but as Lechay archly reminds him, he is a good enough soldier to follow orders when, after reconnaissance by Sergeant Carter and Corporal Newkirk reveals the top-secret facility to be virtually impregnable, prompting Hogan to cancel the mission, she pulls rank on him in a scene framed and paced for maximum impact by director Gene Reynolds.

Thus, the caper becomes having Lechay get captured by the Germans so they can try to persuade her to resume working for them at the laboratory. While supervising the prisoners on a work detail outside camp, Sergeant Schultz is reluctant to detain Lechay--because of the bureaucratic red tape that would entail--but the arrival of Colonel Klink, Stalag 13's commandant, settles the matter. With General Burkhalter's "encouragement" during her interrogation, Klink becomes Lechay's jailer while she works at the lab, but when the Gestapo insists that she remain at the facility all the time, the Heroes devise a plan to keep her from their clutches--which is a surprise to Lechay as well.

Although smoothly staged by Reynolds, the resolution to "Hogan and the Lady Doctor" still feels rushed and anti-climactic, yet it still contains enough momentum built up from the start. Much of that is due to Lee's performance. An industry fixture on the big and small screens largely as a supporter, the diminutive Lee musters her modest abilities to give Lechay the conviction that carries the narrative. Responding to her effort, Bob Crane steps up his game, making their scenes together crackle with dramatic chemistry, including, inevitably, the sexual tension inherent between the two--as Corporal LeBeau notes wryly, referring to her lipstick traces on Hogan, while the Heroes are planning her rescue.

Along with his usual attention to detail in constructing a story that combines pointed humor with a plausible caper that signifies material resistance to the Germans, Laurence Marks creates a female character with substance and independence who doesn't have to fall back on sex appeal (brief kiss with Hogan notwithstanding), and Ruta Lee rises to the occasion in an impressive performance that displays all the right chemistry.