Original Broadcast Date: Nov. 14, 1974
Attempted Synopsis: A squadron leader reports news to his superior in such purple prose that nobody can understand it; a general has no idea how to deal with an enemy who flicks towels and otherwise trivializes his war; at a court trial, a very interesting variation on Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" is introduced; a TV executive conceives of re-titling reruns to save money on new shows; lots of near-dirty words are bandied about to show their similarity to actual dirty words; and Neil Innes helps the Second World War to turn all sentimental.
Review: The final "Flying Circus" series has its detractors (myself among them, somewhat), but if ever there was a reason for its existence, this episode is the one. Lots of great cheap shots at manly war talk and sentimentalization of human conflict. And Neil Innes, who made his imprint so vividly on the Python movies Holy Grail and Live at the Hollywood Bowl, contributes a lovely closing song that makes war-sentimentalization seem like not such a bad thing.
Priceless Gag: Michael Palin's breathless narration of a coming-attractions trailer for a war movie about "one man's love for another man in drag." (Did they turn this one into The Birdcage?)
Our rating: 
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