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Number Engaged

episode of Dad's Army

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 7, 2024
Entity authorityQ7069509
Source-derived summary

"Number Engaged" is the fifth episode of the ninth and final series of the British television sitcom Dad's Army. It was originally broadcast on 6 November 1977 on BBC1 and was the penultimate episode of the series.

Synopsis

The platoon is tasked with guarding the new telephone wires that have been set up along the coast. During the night, an air raid occurs, and upon waking, the platoon discover an unexploded bomb caught in the wires.

Plot

The platoon has been assigned to guard a two-mile stretch of telephone wires that are vital for the war effort. Arriving at the site in Jones's van, Mainwaring orders Frazer to prepare the next morning's breakfast. However, Frazer explains that he cannot cook the porridge since he must catch the trout for dinner, so Mainwaring appoints Pike to prepare the porridge. Before departing, Frazer gives Pike the recipe of 'one jug of water to one mug of porridge' for every man present.

During the night an air raid occurs, and the next morning, while eating breakfast, Pike asks Mainwaring what he should do with the leftover porridge he has prepared. Pike mixed up Frazer's measurements, and upon discovering the leftovers, which are enough to feed 'a hundred men', Mainwaring calls Pike a 'stupid boy'.

Editorial summary

“Number Engaged” enters the record as episode of Dad's Army. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Number, Engaged and episode can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1977—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1977-11-06. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Number, Engaged and episode.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Number Engaged” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Number, Engaged and episode provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q7069509. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1977.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Number Engaged” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.