Not only does "Savile Row to the Rescue" have the transitional feel of the part-two (or middle) "bridge" in a trilogy, but the forward momentum "'Allo 'Allo!" creators and scripters Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft had generated in the previous three episodes stalls as this installment treads water, repeating various tropes established previously with the expected diminishing returns.
One example is the uniform saga, which becomes drawn out with German Colonel Von Strohm and Captain Geering, whom café proprietor Rene had relieved of their uniforms so the two British airmen, Flight Lieutenants Fairfax and Carstairs, he had been sheltering could escape, now sitting dolefully in the café in the plebian garb of French onion sellers replete with gaudy garlands of the pungent vegetable strung around their necks, reducing them to literal tears.
With those uniforms now burned up, Rene has arranged for replacements to be made--in London, and, just to add insult to Master Race injury, by Jewish tailors. As Von Strohm's secretary Private Geerhart would (and does) say, "oy vey!" Distressed by Von Strohm's threat to have him shot unless their uniforms are forthcoming forthwith, Rene assures him that they will arrive by air soon.
And when Michelle "from the Resistance" makes her sudden stealth entrance at the café, she brings Rene a hot potato indeed: nitroglycerin concealed in a bottle of gin. Bols, you say? And no surprise that the nitro, which Michelle wants Rene to hold prior to a Resistance attack on a railroad, will find itself inadvertently consumed, particularly as Michelle takes pains to note that the liquid explosive has the same light blue color as some gin. Can you say "telegraph"?
Sure enough, Rene's wife Edith pours a blast to comfort her invalid mother Fanny, who complains that she's sick of onion soup and wants poached eggs instead, and when Edith replies that their chickens are not laying eggs, Fanny tells her that they used to mix gin into the corn to get them to lay eggs. Can you say "telegraph"? Yes, Fanny has signed the poultry's death warrant, and you're right to suspect fowl play.
Given the febrile brilliance of the previous three episodes, a decline in sustained excellence was inevitable, and "Savile Row to the Rescue" is it. But given the expected twist at the close, there is more than enough reason to hang on to this saga, particularly as taskmaster General Von Klinkerhoffen is due to arrive shortly, with the possibility of catching his subordinates Von Strohm and Geering out of uniform. Just don't expect a big bang here. Unless you're a chicken.
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