Gearing up for the finale of the first series of "'Allo 'Allo!," "Reds Nick Colonel" introduces a plot complication to stretch out the series-long narrative of café owner Rene Artois in World War Two northern France caught between placating the occupying Germans and helping the underground Resistance smuggle two British airmen back to England in this serviceable episode written by series creators Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft.
It's town commandant Colonel Von Strohm's birthday, and Rene has baked a cake for him, his waitresses Maria and Yvette promise the colonel some off-menu treats in their rooms later, and Rene's wife Edith, "mutton dressed as lamb," serenades the colonel in a voice that surely must have been banned by the Geneva Convention. But in the midst of the merriment, a Resistance group enters the café and abducts Von Strohm and Geering for the supposed execution of Rene, with Michelle "of the Resistance" telling Rene that it was the Communist-led Resistance who abducted the German officers, not her De Gaulle-inspired group.
Word of the abduction quickly reaches local Gestapo agent Herr Flick, who orders ten peasants to be shot the next morning if Von Strohm and Geering are not returned to him by then. Then the Resistance group holding them shanghaies Rene, but only to hand him a pistol so he can shoot the men responsible for, as they imagine, the death of his brother. At the same time, the group has intercepted the air drop by the Royal Air Force that includes--finally!--the replacement uniforms for the German officers as well as the original and the copy of the painting "The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies" for which Herr Flick is also searching.
Lloyd and Croft's uneven script blends quick wit with standard routines that can lapse into banality, such as the familiar speculation about where champagne glasses get their shape that devolves into Geering's crass shot at Private Geerhart's bosom, while Carmen Silvera's deliberately awful singing does indeed get wearing over the length of an entire song even if it proves to be fodder for subsequent one-liners such as Herr Flick's "mutton" crack and the Communist-led Resistance leader's (Susan Kyd) assurance that Rene's activities are not suspicious.
Michelle leads Edith, Maria, and Yvette on the attack of the Communist group to free Rene and the two German officers, but any resolution stemming from that can only lead to further complications as "Reds Nick Colonel" paves the way for the end of the first series of this British situation comedy that peaked early and has been scrambling to sustain interest since the midpoint of the run.
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