New, ‘Nuanced’ TV Series on the Iraq War
Libertas
The Iraq War as TV melodrama.
All right, here we go. We hadn’t been hearing very much about Steven Bochco’s new FX series Over There, about the Iraq War. Now the reviews are starting to pour in, and we’re beginning to notice the usual trend. There’s this today from the Hollywood Reporter:
This is the modern-day equivalent of Steven Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage – and not just for the potent way it destroys and debunks the myths that glorify war … It is possible, maybe even inevitable, that supporters of President Bush and the war will misinterpret this series as a statement against a U.S. presence there. Clearer minds, however, will recognize this for its nonpartisan and successful effort to accurately depict contemporary warfare and the personal conflicts that arise from military duty.
Yes, ‘clearer minds’ - because, of course, there couldn’t possibly be any ‘clear minds’ among those who support the President or the war. [Again, many thanks to the Hollywood Reporter for its typically impartial reportage.] Today’s Wall Street Journal review more or less confirms the center-left posture of the show.
Anybody surprised here? The silver lining is that few people will bother watching, anyhow.
libertyfilmfestival.com
War as TV Fiction
WSJ.com
By NANCY DEWOLF SMITH
July 22, 2005; Page W8
The first episode of "Over There," a weekly drama about American soldiers in Iraq, is extremely painful to watch (FX on Thursday, from 10-11 p.m. ET). Most members of the fictional unit seen leaving for duty in Iraq clearly don't want to go and a number seem to have enlisted on a whim or for reasons unrelated to serving their country.
The first time we see them in combat, the hideousness of their predicament becomes even more clear. They are hunkered down near an insurgent-infested desert mosque with a sergeant who wants to keep them alive but a lieutenant who seems intent on getting them killed. The goriness of the final fight with the insurgents is sickening, but no worse than the creeping sense that nobody in the U.S. unit is part of a well-trained, well-oiled machine.
The lapses of discipline are appalling. One of the two women in the group gets into a petty argument and yells in frustration, bringing down enemy fire. The pot-smoking homeboy from Compton seems as interested in continuing the race wars as he is in fighting the insurgents, and he also risks the lives of his comrades by failing to do a routine check of a car trunk. Indeed, the show might have had to end after the first episode if it weren't for the timely arrival of a Muslim soldier from Detroit who is much more savvy about the nature of the enemy than his comrades-in-arms.
Observing all this is a Cornell graduate who serves as the everyman conscience of the show. He is disgusted by the lethal results of battles; disheartened when he is ordered to shoot at a mysterious car which won't stop at the roadblock ("This isn't a fight, it's a goddam execution!"); and even more troubled when a captured insurgent is interrogated for information about a stolen truckload of U.S. Stinger missiles.
Things are also grim on the home front, where one substance-abusing wife is already running around on her soldier husband and neglecting their son, and the others left behind are suffering excruciating loneliness, compounded by the Army's apparent callousness.
Yes, war is hell. But it must be said that after the first episode an intolerable sense of dread begins to fade and watching starts to become... entertaining. Blame it on the compelling characters, like Erik Palladino's great Sgt. "Scream" Silas: What makes them tick? What will happen to them all? Blame it on TV hitmaker Steven Bochco, the co-creator and executive producer, who says he set out to create "a very compelling entertainment." Who knew that a drumbeat of pessimism could deliver such a kick? We should hate it more.War as TV Fiction |
