Cloak and Dagger: "The Black Radio" 8/27/50
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C and D was a regrettably short-lived but excellent series about agents working for the O.S.S. during World War 2. As an anthology series, it was able to jump around the world from week to week. One episode was set in the jungles of Burma; another in occupied Norway; another atop the snow-covered mountains of Tibet.
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As an anthology series, it featured a different protagonist each week. One of the strengths of this format was you never knew for sure if the good guys would survive until the end of the episode. Sometimes, they didn't.
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"The Black Radio" is a typically strong entry in the series, featuring an agent who is sent into a strategic German town to set up a "Voice of Freedom" broadcast station. He poses as an ex-soldier (discharged because of wounds) during the day, while making his broadcasts at night. He has to constantly switch his radio to new locations to avoid detection, as well as deal with a noisy neighbor who just happens to work as a clerk at Gestapo headquarters.
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The script does a really good job of establishing a constant sense of danger and fear, thus keeping the tension high throughout the episode. There's also a heart-breaking sequence in which his Underground contact within the town is captured and scheduled to be publicly executed, leaving him feeling helpless and guilt-ridden as he realizes there is nothing he can do to help. The ending includes a great twist.
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There's a moment early in the episode that particularly highlights just how well-written Cloak and Dagger was. When the protagonist has to make a night-time parachute jump over the Black Forest, his first-person narration does a spine-tingling job of telling us just how scary this was. It was a bit that didn't really have anything to do with the main plot, but it added a lot to the overall atmosphere and verisimilitude of the episode.
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Sadly, only 22 episodes of Cloak and Dagger were produced, but all of them survive today in good quality recordings.
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