Cheap The Rat Patrol - The Complete Second Season (DVD) (Eddie Davis (II), Jack N. Reddish, Frank Baur, Leon Benson, Sutton Roley) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Rat Patrol - The Complete Second Season

Even Better Than Season One!
I must admit, I was counting the days until the estimated delivery of this DVD. The packaging and covers were already opened before I made it through my front door, and the next several hours were spent gleaming through all 26 episodes on the 3 enclosed DVDs. <
> I must say, I liked the second season of the Rat Patrol better than the first for several reasons. Foremost, the Germans appear to have spent their time wisely in the desert because they can actually hit the broad side of a barn now. There were at least 3 episodes where the Patrol's jeeps are the vehicles seen doing flip flops after being hit by enemy fire, and all of the Rat Patrol members get shot this season. Secondly, the series seems to have found its stride and matured more. Hauffman Dietrich doesn't just stand around with a frown on his face after being upped by Sergeant Troy, he's mad as hell and not taking it anymore. Although many of the snappy dialogues between the two are missing from this season, we get a deeper look into Dietrich's character even to the extent of discovering he is capable of killing one of his own comrades. <
> Along the same thread, the second season seems more "darker" and realistic when compared to the first. Both sides are definately "not ready to make nice" and the stress is showing. Troy's nicotine habit has noticably increased, Hitchcock's characteristic smile is seldom seen, Moffitt is apologizing more, and Tully actually disappears for four episodes, replaced by various stand-ins. Also, in spite of requests for translation of German in the subtitles, the powers-that-be have only added useless captions like "Speaking in German", "Speaking in Arabic", "Man gasping for air", okay, maybe not the last one, but don't expect any difference here. However, on the positive side, Tully's haircuts are now making him look like a twenty year old, and the orange hair dye is gone. There are also more scenes taking place by the ocean, more German and Allied villains to love or hate depending on your preference, and hardly any episodes so hokey that they can only envoke shaken heads and rolled eyeballs. <
> If you bought season one and thought it was great, you will not be disappointed with season two, although if you are it will probably be because of slightly fewer episodes and the fact there is no season three. We can only wonder what and where the series would have gone had it been renewed in an hour-long format as was originally planned for the next season. People have consistantly criticized the lack of character development in the series due to its half-hour episodes, but I got to know each character intimately. Whether that happened from watching all 58 episodes, appreciating the fine acting or a combination of both is debatable I guess. I just enjoy having a permanent reminder of childhood TV viewing days around the house now.

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Captain Dietrich and The German Afrika Korps Face Another Battering
The 1950's and 1960's produced a lot of stories about special Commando <
>operations in the Second World War. Examples are "The Bridge on the River Kwai", "The Guns of Navarone", "Where Eagles Dare", "Force 10 From Navarone" and even stories involving the Royal Air Force like "633 Squadron". This series, "The Rat Patrol" was produced to take advantage of this interest. This series is based on real-life groups like the "Long Range Desert Group" who harassed the Germans behind their lines in North Africa. Although this series was made by Americans, it should be pointed out that it was the British who really developed Commando operations to a high degree. This was due to several factors, one being that Britain was traditionally a Naval power and did not have a large standing army, so they had to get the maximum out of the limited forces they had, thus they encouraged their commandos to be bold by giving them a lot of independence, and secondly, the trauma due to the high casualties of the First World War gave the British the incentive to try to damage the enemy in indirect ways and not just throw massed armies at them frontally. Thus, although these North African Commando groups were mostly British while this series was American, they included a British commando (portrayed well by actor Gary Raymond) into the Rat Patrol as homage to the real leaders in this field. What is important is that <
>we see the real-life-type dedication of the group, led by actor Chris George, to aggressively carry out their mission, almost without regard to the risk. <
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>Regarding the series itself, I found the quality of the episodes improved <
>as the first season wore on, yet there were numerous problems. The half-hour format didn't allow many potential stories and characters to develop. In real-life, Captain Dietrich, their perpetual nemesis, would have been shot for cowardice on more than one occasion as he let the Patrol get the best of him even though his men greatly outnumbered them. In real life, much of the "German" army in North Africa was really made up of Italian soldiers, but we almost never see them. One of the members of the Patrol, Hitchcock, insists on wearing a bright red hat (I presume in order to give him "character"), whereas everyone else, on both sides wears grey-brown uniforms which blend in over the surroundings. It is comical seeing him peer over sand dunes with that hat which could be easily seen by the enemy! Because this was American TV, even though <
>thousands of rounds of ammunition are fired at them by the Germans, they are almost never hit, and if they are, it is never fatal, which of course, is not the nature of war (compare this with the more serious series "Combat" where Americans do get killed in the series). <
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>Having said this, I find the series quite entertaining with a lot of exiciting stunt work, and although the <
>show is, as I said , not "realistic", the types of missions the show depicts were frequently true-life, and in addition to being entertained, <
>the viewer does get at least a partial idea of what the free-flowing <
>war in North Africa was like.

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Mission: Impossible Meets The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,James Bond And Lawrence Of Arabia
I Am Looking Forward To Buying The DVD Set Of The Rat Patrol On DVD I Will Be Off Restriction Soon So That I Can Buy The DVD Set Of The Rat Patrol I Did Watch That Every Friday Night At 9:30 PM When I Was A Toddler With My Mom And Dad On Fridays At 9:30 I Watched The Rat Patrol On Friday Night At 9:30 PM The Rat Patrol Was On Every Friday At 9:30 PM It Came On After The Big Valley On Fridays That Is What I Recall The Good Guys Always Win As The Rat Patrol I Used To Watch This Series With My Mom And My Dad Who Died Last Year He Would Have Liked This My Dad Liked Combat,The Rat Patrol And Hogan's Heroes He Was Not A Fan Of 12 O'Clock High He Did Like The Gallant Men A WWII Based Series From The 60's I Would Deserve To Get I Don't Like War Stuff Except Combat,The Rat Patrol And Hogan's Heroes I Got Season 1 Of The Rat Patrol On DVD As Well As Seasons 1 And 2 Of Hogan's Heroes World War II As A Comedy With Laugh Track