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Airwolf

Fight Like a Dove

Season 1, Episode 8, Aired Mar 10, 1984

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After her nazi-hunting father is murdered by infamous nazi Helmut Kruger, Sarah LeBow tracks down Hawke and Santini, and asks their help in using Airwolf to penetrate Kruger's heavily fortified compound in Paraguay so she can avenge her father's death. Kruger is working as a weapons dealer, trading in a cutting-edge new weapons system called "Thor", but Archangel has his own concerns with Kruger and is determined that Hawke must not intervene...moreless

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Cast & Crew

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GUEST STAR
Tovah Feldshuh

Sarah LeBow
GUEST STAR
Walter Gotell

Helmut Kruger (alias Hans Dauber)
GUEST STAR
Elias Zarou

Arab Buyer

Ernest Borgnine

Dominic Santini
Alex Cord

Michael 'Archangel' Coldsmith-Briggs III
Jan-Michael Vincent

Stringfellow Hawke

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Fan Episode Reviews (1)

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Sarah LeBow manages to track down Airwolf, Hawke and Santini, and convinces them to help her capture Nazi Helmut Kruger. But Kruger is in possession of deadly new weapons system "Thor" which Archangel has his own interests in. Not one of the best eps...moreless

7.5

"Good"

By Jay-Spacedust, Mar 08, 2011

This review contains spoilers.

'Fight Like a Dove' has never been one of my favourite first season episodes, and coming to watch it again tonight, on DVD to review, I can't say I've warmed to it any more. It is a dragged out and in places very unclear story, definitely not one of the season's best offerings.

After Hawke insists that himself and Dominic see how Airwolf can go up into space without cutting out (just to "see if it can be done", serving no real connection with the rest of the story and one of the scenes that my local ITV region LWT decided to chop out when they re-ran the series in the mid-1990s), they return to the Lair, where Sarah LeBow, daughter of a murdered Nazi hunter, corners them.
This is the big oddity of the episode. I mean, all of the Firm's high-tech resources cannot track down Airwolf, and yet an outsider, with seemingly no special intelligence, finds them just like that... how? It is never explained, and is just brushed over in the story. (The only time that anyone else would ever find the Lair would be in the third season story 'Discovery', and that was purely by chance).

After than, the story kind of plods on. There's a plot in there somewhere, but I personally found it quite slow going.

One of the few things of note about the episode is Archangel, and proof of how slippery and unpredictable he can be. It comes as a surprise when we see him at the arms sale with Kruger. But this element is never really explained in any real clarity. Later on, we get some blurry explanation of how the U.S. deliberately designed flawed weapons to sell to him, but this is never really made all that clear to follow.

As I've said above, there is a plot in here... somewhere. But the story is very slow going, and has no real sense of urgency. Hawke seems to have some cunning masterplan of how to disable Thor and get rid of Kruger, but in actuality it just involves flying around outmanoeuvring the missiles, while Archangel is waiting a while away in a section of the 'plan' that is even more vague. Sarah actually shooting Archangel, nicking him in the ear, as about as exciting as this one gets.

So all-in-all, not one of 'Airwolf's greatest instalments. Of course, anything is better than the abysmal Canadian-produced fourth season, and in fairness this episode is probably better than a lot of the third season stories too. But it just feels so limp, without the urgency it badly needs. Not the weakest of the season, that title goes to 'Daddy's Gone A Hunt'n', but can only bring myself to give 'Fight Like a Dove' a 7.5.moreless
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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (1)
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- The Firm and countless other agencies can't locate Airwolf, but in this episode, Sarah LeBow does. How? It is never really explained.
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QUOTES (1)
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- Archangel: You're unbending, Hawke, unswerving. You think there's a right and a wrong and the right should always win. Not so. There's grey, and beige, there's a lot of almost and compromise, political manoeuvring and intrigue. The people who do THAT are in the business. Hawke: You still haven't made your point. Archangel: Forget about Sarah LeBow. Let this Kruger thing go. Hawke: She knows where Airwolf is, doesn't that concern you? (Archangel hesitates, deciding how to respond; Marella cuts in) Marella: We'll arrange a new hiding place for Airwolf Hawke(laughs): Then you'll know where Airwolf is. Marella(smiles):Yes.
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NOTES (4)
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- The closing credits finish with a shot of Hawke and Sarah kissing; yet in the episode itself they never kiss.
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- In the UK and some countries, this episode was released by CIC on video in the 1980s, merged (rather bizarrely) with the second season episode 'HX 1', and given the title 'Airwolf III: Flight Into Danger'. (See under notes for 'Echos from The Past' for more details on these video releases). However, unlike the video version of the Pilot and 'Airwolf II: A Deadly Mission!', this title was only ever released once, intended for the rental market, and as a result, is quite rare - much rarer that the previous two titles in the release series.
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- Although his reasons for being involved with Kruger are eventually explained, this episode (though not the clearest of stories to follow) is a prime example of just how deceptive Archangel could be early on in the series.
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- Sarah LeBow somehow manages to track down Airwolf's location – though just how exactly is never explained in this episode. Seeing that the Firm, and countless other organisations are trying to find Airwolf, it seems curious that one woman alone could track it down. The only other time Airwolf's location would be unwantingly discovered by an outsider, was by sheer chance by a woman running from some killers, in the third season episode 'Discovery'.
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ALLUSIONS (0)
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