Just as the castaways were left to languish on Gilligan's Island, so, too, did cancellation deprive fans of seeing Col. Hogan (Bob Crane) and company finally liberated from Stalag 13. But at least this controversial series (again; it's a P.O.W., and not a concentration, camp!) went out literally with a bang, another successful act of sabotage of Nazi operations. The sixth season brought a new face to the barracks, Kenneth Washington as Sgt. Baker, replacing (without explanation) Ivan Dixon's "Kinch." Happily, some of the series' most entertaining recurring characters put in final appearances. Bernard Fox, as the hapless Col. Crittendon, enjoys his finest hour in the two-parter "Lady Chitterly's Lover," in which he must impersonate a look-alike British traitor, and Kathleen Freeman, as the dread Gertrude Berkhalter, upsets Hogan's plans to sneak a downed U.S. general out of camp in "Kommandant Gertrude." John Banner, as Sgt. Schultz, has one of his best episodes in "Kommandant Schultz," in which power goes to the cuddly buffoon's head when he is put in command of Stalag 13.But mostly this season is business as usual, with Hogan and his men--Newkirk (Richard Dawson), LeBeau (Robert Clary) and Carter (Larry Hovis)--smuggling, hijacking, stealing, and otherwise disrupting the German war effort under the nose of clueless Col. Klink (Werner Klemperer, an Emmy nominee for this season). One standout episode is "Eight O'Clock and All Is Well," with guest star Monte Markham as a new prisoner with impeccable credentials whom Hogan discovers is actually a Gestapo spy. And in the episode "Look at the Pretty Snowflakes," Crane gets to demonstrate his virtuoso drumming as he attempts to cause an avalanche. Between the "krauts, lice, stinking food and bloody awful weather," life in Stalag 13 was no picnic. But, as Hogan tries to convince LeBeau not to return to France in the episode "Cuisine a la Stalag 13," let us not forget "all the fun... all the laughs." That is Hogan's Heroes' final legacy. --Donald Liebenson
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Of all the spinoff TV incarnations of Star Trek, Deep Space Nine had the hardest job persuading an audience to watch. By all accounts, Gene Roddenberry had concerns about the idea before his death in 1991. It took two more years to develop, and when it finally aired in 1993 reasons for that concern were evident right away. The show was dark (literally), characters argued a lot, no one went anywhere, and the neighboring natives were hardly ever friendly. Yet for all that the show went against the grain of the Great Bird's original vision of the future, it undeniably caught the mood of the time, incorporating a complex political backdrop that mirrored our own.