No problem. Just remember before Barry Levinson directing his great films, he was directing Homicide: Life on the Street.

FWIW, the Wire and Homicide are almost more intellectual, than they are cop-action shows.

We now re-join your thread, already in progress--

The last episode was the best one yet. The invasion sequence was particularly good, as they are waiting to leave the main ship, I started to feel really anxious, waiting to see what was comin as the door was opening.

I hope the rest are similar to this last one

I suppose that ANY beach-storming sequence must be compared to Saving Private Ryan. Is it possible, though, that this one topped it?

Good lord. Moving FORWARD, into that nightmare. I'm not sure I'd ever make it out of the transport thingy. I'd be in the fetal position weeping.

Yeah, it was definately the most intense sequence yet in this series. I think I would just freeze in a situation like that, I wouldn't be able to cope I don't think

Good landing scene but not better than the one in Saving Private Ryan. That sequence was one of the best action filmmakers of all time working at the peak of his abilities (and of course he topped it 2 hours later with that brilliant bridge fight). The episode overall was definitely an improvement on the last two, though I've never had any issues with the battle scenes. It would be better if the series was just 100 percent battles, with foxhole conversations. The characterization is still worthless and detracts from the series by being there at all. They all seem like unpleasant assholes (save for the Jurassic Park kid, whose naivete is actually refreshing amongst all the tough-guy bullshit). I dug the part at the end with the one soldier talking about the Grand Canyon. I felt closer to him in that moment than I have with any of the main characters in the entire rest of the series.

Anyone else feel like the show is torn between being anti-war and pro-war? It has the feel of propaganda, while constantly emphasizing the misery of war. It's perhaps an inherent conflict in making a series about a "good" war in the middle of a "bad" war.

I'm not really seeing a position being taken at all. I think that they just wanted to make the war scenes as confronting as they absolutely should be when attempting something like this.

return to form in episode 6. intense.

Yeah it was a pretty good episode. This show is by no means fantastic, but it is pretty damn entertaining.

Snafu is cool.

snafu tossing pebbles into that dude's skull was pretty wild.

Yeah he is a crazy fucker. I wonder what the ratio of totally fucked up people to normal people there would have been after surviving for so long in a war like that? It would have to make you kind of crazy, at least for the time being anyway. Human life would mean absolutely nothing after surviving through some of that shit.

Maybe it's a little hackneyed, but I did kind of like the bit where he tells what's-his-name not to cut out that dude's teeth for fear of disease. The message about succumbing to madness, viewing everything as meaningless, was obvious, but I thought well done in that context.

I enjoy two characters now, thankfully - "skipper"(who died) and the "skipper, so and so says super chargers are worthless" dude. That guy has a nice careeer ahead of him. Really good performance.

lol at the French toast scene. "There's enough for seconds. And you'll want seconds." And then he eats two bites of it, they talk about coffee, and he leaves.

haha yeah I was shaking my head at that one. No warm blooded male is going to only eat two bites of french toast at four in the morning unless he has swine flu or something. I feel the series has definitely improved, but it's still laced with weak moments. I'll take it though.

Last episode was fairly lame. I didn't even remember half of the characters from the final montage thing.

I thought the one before was quite good though. I ended up really liking Snafu, he was by far the best character of the series.

Overall I would say, given how much I was anticipating it, this series really didn't live up to the hype. Band of Brothers is so much better than this.

Yeah, this show is way boring. Didn't make it pass the 4th episode. There is just little compelling about these dudes to make you watch with much interest.

It's a show that wants to feel important. It's just boring shit.

i actually liked the episodes between australia and the finale. (and those two were the worst.) leckie was kind of a bore and only seemed to serve as a placeholder until sledgehammer and snafu could take the reins as the primary focus. but they really took over in a big way. there were some terrific scenes among their group.

It was good. Certainly not great. Problem was, even watching with captions on, I couldn't tell anyone apart aside from the three protagonists and Snafu. Then at the end they'd be saying what happened to everyone and I'd be going, "Wait, which one was he?"

Yeah, I was doing the same thing during the recaps of what happened to everyone, aside from the 3-4 leads. Thing is, I don't know if it suffered because it was based on specific memoirs, or what. I guess it's commendable to be accurate to the source material, I would have just liked some better characterization at the beginning.

Watched the final episode last night. I think I pretty much hated this series. Can't believe the number of Emmy nominations it got. Outstanding Writing for episode ten, are you kidding me? Some of the most cliched war writing I've ever seen. Snafu, the only interesting character in the series, even calls attention to it. When another character says, "What are we gonna do now?" Snafu responds, "'What are we gonna do now?' What an idiot." Terrible dialogue, forced interactions, obvious setups and knock downs ("Didn't they teach you anything in the marines?" "They taught me how to kill japs. I got pretty good at it."). Characters that are afraid to actually be characters. "Tendency to stare" as a primary personality trait. Phony acting that underscores all this. It's as if they were attempting a throw-back style of glossy cinema but without the script to back it up. Way too solemn and "respectful." Essentially worthless.

But golly gee whiz bang, look at those explosions and those bullets and all that gore! Cause that's the real reason this was made. To kill people onscreen in scene after scene. To underscore the horror, you see. Of course, every soldier in this was an unpleasant cardboard asshole, so what do I care if they live or die?

i believe this is verbatim from with the old breed.

Not a bad line in and of itself. But the way it was set up in the scene seemed a bit forced to me. Could just be the acting and direction, though, and not necessarily the writing.