YMMV / The Rat Patrol

• Awesome Music: Dominic Frontiere's rousing Instrumental Theme Tune will really get your blood pumping.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Dietrich is so well-liked that is made his portrayer Hans Gudegast more popular then the show's star Christopher George, hence Dietrich's actor would later adapt the stage name "Eric Braeden" to get more roles and be cast in later notable projects such as Colossus: The Forbin Project, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, Titanic (1997) and The Young and the Restless. Christopher George went on to The Immortal (1969), Grizzly and Day of the Animals...and Pieces
• Estrogen Brigade: For a show about soldiers with minimal characterization and more chase scenes and explosions than you can shake a stick at, you might wonder why it’s so popular among the ladies… unless you’ve seen the leads.
• Evil Is Cool: Next to being an efficient and cunning combatant and a Worthy Opponent for the Rat Patrol, Dietrich sits pretty squarely in Type IV of being an Anti-Villain. He's essentially just a German fighting for Germany, and for a man who's supposed to be their enemy, he spends a fair bit of time working with the Rat Patrol instead of fighting them.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In the "Bring 'Em Back Alive Raid", the Patrol captures a German research doctor who uses humans as test subjects, and when Troy confronts him about it he's unapologetic and says that he's fairly sure the Allied doctors would agree with him and are only capturing him to get his information. After the war, Operation Paperclip saw a lot of Nazi scientists being brought to America for use in the space program, and while war criminals and those who indulged in human experimentation were excluded from the program, some (like Hubertus Strughold) were able to slip through anyway, with their crimes only being discovered much later. The research doctor is more right than he knows.
• Heartwarming Moments: Many.
  • Special mention goes to Dietrich in "The Decoy Raid" when he shoots an insane SS officer to save Moffitt’s life.
  • Troy saving the dog in "The Darers Go First Raid".
  • In "The Delilah Raid", Colonel Leske sacrifices himself by Jumping on a Grenade to save his French lover Michele. Doubles as a Tearjerker.
  • In "The Truce at Aburah Raid", the Rats and Dietrich's men work together to save an Arab child who's fallen into a well, even after a second Nazi faction complicates matters by ignoring the truce.
  • Troy's caring relationship with his brother David in "The Field of Death Raid". It helps that David is played by Nick George, Christopher George's actual brother.
• Ho Yay: Every which way you look. "The Love Thine Enemy Raid" practically makes Troy/Moffitt canon, with Moffitt whiny and jealous the entire episode when Troy is devoting all his attention to saving the life of a beautiful German nurse. Tully and Hitch get a few moments too, and heck, all the guys one time or another.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Making Hans Dietrich an Anti-Villain of a Worthy Opponent with Villain Respect to the Rat Patrol from the get-go to a point for having formed an Enemy Mine in more then one episode would have opened the door to an opportunity for Dietrich to undergo Character Development and have more of his redeeming qualities becoming more upfront, possibly either inspired him to pull a Heel–Face Turn or finally surrender to the Rat Patrol on good respectable terms after finally accepting the country he served is under a criminal regime that contradicts with his decent and honorable principles and multiple odds against him during the show in a proper Grand Finale, alas it never happens and the show still treated him as a reoccurring pursuing antagonist from the beginning to the end.

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