The Making of Private Pike

DVD, Dad's Army S9 (The Making of Private Pike)

The actors seemed more with it this time. Mainwaring, Godfrey, even Wilson, seemed more alert and active. Perhaps they'd got more into it again, or maybe it was because most of the scenes were studio-based, but they certainly seemed more able-bodied. The episode (as the title suggests) is more about Pike than anyone, when he and Hodges' niece Sylvia get into bother after taking the platoon's new staff car. She's an extremely flirty type and coming from Hodges' family you know from the off that she's a bad'un!

Poor Godfrey is constantly shouted down by Mainwaring whenever he so much as speaks, and the others all get their moments. Talk of the Black Market made me think of Walker and how fascinating it is to wonder what the series would have been like had he lived to continue through its entirety. Continuity is again upheld, when Pike tells Sylvia he can't join the regular army because of his rare blood condition (discovered in last season's 'When You've Got To Go') and with appearances by Hodges, the Vicar, Verger, Mrs. Fox and Mrs. Pike. And we end on a funny scene where Wilson gets the wrong end of the stick about Pike's night out, and Pike also gets the wrong end of the stick when they have their 'man to man talk'. Plenty of moments show the actors still have the ability to make us laugh, and it's a shame they were to make only four more.

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