>Ah, yes, the only decent part of the "Target: <X>!" series of
>episodes. Man, remember "Target: Ploesti!", hampered by stunningly
>haphazard production values, and "Target: Hiroshima!" which featured
>the Allied team using a completely nonstandard piece of equipment and
>a rules loophole to run the score up to insane levels?

I wouldn't call it a rules loophole. It was pretty well established by that point in the series that technical innovation was allowed. Granted, this was a pretty extreme case, but within the spirit.

My main point here s to observe that if you think "Target: Edersee Dam!" was the best of the Target eps, that would mean you didn't like "Target: Nagasaki!" Which I think is possibly the best plot bait and switch in the entire series. Did you just not watch it because you were expecting a repeat of "Target: Hiroshima!"? It's the sort of episode I thought you'd enjoy.

<SUMMARY SPOILERS!>

For those who aren't going to watch it, most of T:N! has nothing to do with the actual match. From the episode opening up to the match in the last act (which is indeed a virtual repeat of the T:H! match, with some Allied League fumbling) is all about the Axis Japan team and their tragic attempts to come to grips with the T:N! match and losing the season. Up until this point much of the team and the fans have been able to deny the upcoming loss (it's pretty clear to us they would have eventually, but denial is more than a river in Egypt), but the T:H! match result underlines it...at least for some of the team. It's played much like the down side of a Shakespearian tragedy and all the characterizations mesh perfectly into a ball of anger, denial, and bargaining. It's pretty heartbreaking to see these well loved characters, even the late in the war crazy Zero, backstabbing and infighting.

Once you see "Target: Nagasaki!" it become much clearer why "Target: Hiroshima!" was structured the way it was: to provide contrast. The Allied American team, after a great deal of panic early on, is now collected and thinking ahead. The flashback sequences in T:H! to their early days, contrast with the almost robotic way they play the T:H! match. The following T:N! ep shows the Japanese team cracking under the strain, and engaging in internal conflict...right up until the Americans do it again. And it all leads up to the double whammy ending with the coach and the team owner getting BOTH the news of the T:N! match AND the Soviet initiated match in Manchuria pretty much simultaneously.

-VR
"Truth … is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations."
"They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind,
And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind."