Entries in the Category "TV"
The Pacific
Band of Brothers is one of the best miniseries ever made. It tells the fascinating story of Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division from D-Day through the end of World War II. The Pacific is a companion piece to Band of Brothers, following various soldiers through their experience fighting the Japanese following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Band of Brothers succeeds on many levels. The production looks incredible and does a fantastic job of putting the viewer in Europe in 1944. The cast is also very strong, featuring several standout performances. Despite requiring the viewer to follow many story lines, Band of Brothers is very well paced and keeps you involved in the story.
The Pacific, unfortunately, does not live up to its predecessor mainly due to its disjointed structure. Warfare in the pacific theater of WWII occurred on dozens of islands over thousands of miles featuring many different military units. This fact limited the filmmakers' storytelling since it wasn't possible to follow one group of troops from beginning to end as they did in Band of Brothers. Their solution for this was to select three different soldiers and inter-cut between their stories throughout the miniseries. In theory this method should work just fine; in practice, however, it serves to break up the flow of each episode to point of making it hard to follow. Band of Brothers solved this problem by focusing on one soldier per episode. Sometimes this was one of the main cast members and other times it was a completely new character. In each case it served to present that episode from a different perspective and show the main cast in a different light. In The Pacific this technique is used only occasionally and those episodes are easily the strongest of the series.
The lack of continuity of character development in many cases detracts from the experience, but in the end The Pacific is definitely worth watching. It features some fantastic battle sequences as well as compelling interviews with surviving veterans. If you are looking for a definitive pacific theater experience, however, Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line is far superior.
Mad Men
In the three years since Mad Men first aired I heard nothing but good things about it. For some reason, however, I never got around to watching the show. Then in March I watched season 1 and became hooked. This week I finished catching up on season 3 and I cannot say enough good things about Mad Men.
This show exemplifies what is great about serialized fiction. The ability to spend an extended amount of time with good characters surpasses any short form media. What makes Mad Men so impressive in this regard is its ability to maintain its tone. Many television shows undergo fairly large shifts from episode to episode and season to season. Mad Men, on the other hand, feels more like an incredibly long movie. The characters are so consistently written that as a viewer it is much easier to understand and empathize with them. In addition to this the production value on screen is first class. The retro style of photography and attention to period detail do an insanely good job of selling the world of Mad Men.
If you aren't watching Mad Men already, put it in your Netflix queue right now and catch up (if you can, watch it on Blu-ray). Season 4 starts on July 25, mark the date.
Battlestar Galactica
With the finale of Battlestar Galactica I felt like sharing my opinions on the show. I was a late comer, having watched seasons 1-3 on DVD during the hiatus between seasons 3 and 4. Ultimately I feel that BSG is a disappointment. For me the first two seasons were incredibly strong because I really enjoyed the action-adventure aspect of the show. Following the Galactica's journey as it fought for survival in spite of infighting and political intrigue was fantastic. I couldn't wait to watch the next episode.
Season 3, however, was for me a turning point. By planting the characters in one place on New Caprica the show's narrative contracted so much that it eliminated most of the adventure aspect that I loved so much. That combined with the increased presence of the Baltar character really took me out of the show.
The politics and mysticism present in the show always worked best as a background element, but as the plot progressed these elements took center stage. For this reason I liken BSG to another great scifi series, The X-Files. Both series had a fantastic start but were eventually overtaken by their respective mythologies. When I think back to some of the best episodes I think about how great of a space adventure BSG was, not the endless mythology that it became. For example the first episode of season 1, 33, where the Cylons follow the fleet's jump every 33 minutes is just great entertainment. It didn't need a thousand layers of gods, or angels, or visions, or prophecies, it worked purely as a human drama. That is where BSG's strength lied and that is why the show was worth watching in spite of it's over-the-top mythology.
The show's finale was a decent wrap-up as series finales go. The battle sequence felt rushed to fit in the rather drawn out denouement, but I was pleased to see some of the more annoying characters get their comeuppance. Some of the plot resolutions, however, were weak at best. In the end I like BSG a lot, but its slow decline has been hard to watch at times.