Band of Brothers

This was my third time watching through Band of Brothers, and this viewing was just as compelling as the first.  In fact, each time I've watched it has arguably been more interesting than the time before.  The reason for that is that Band of Brothers is a show with tremendous depth.  There is simply a lot to take in here in terms of story, and I challenge anyone to catch at all the first time though.  In fact, repeated viewings are practically required in this case.  

There is an enormous cast of characters, and each one is very unique, with motivation and characterization all their own.  So enormous, in fact, that the first time through, I had difficulty even telling all of them apart.  The second time, I got a good grasp of the main players.  On this third viewing, I began to notice more of the background characters and what makes them tick.  And there are a lot of background characters, many of them played by actors who went on to be very famous.  If you want to watch a movie featuring stars as varied as Michael Fassbender, Tom Hardy, Simon Pegg, Jimmy Fallon, and James McAvoy, this might be your only chance. 

Another impressive thing about Band of Brothers is how smart it is. This series came out in 2001, which was a couple of years after The Sopranos, but well before shows like Breaking Bad and The Wire made cinematic television the norm.  Despite that, each episode is like a movie (not surprising, given the involvement of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks).  There isn't really a weak link in the cast performance-wise, and the cinematography is on par with anything in theaters today.  The battle scenes, while actually not as frequent as you might expect, are pitch perfect.  Of course, I have never been to war, but given the fact that real veterans give (often heartbreaking) insight before each episode, I trust that they endorse those scenes, which is good enough for me. And they certainly pass the eyeball test.

I also love how subtle Band of Brothers is.  Making a movie about war involves a delicate combination of fact and drama while never becoming too preachy or jingoistic.  I feel that this miniseries absolutely nails that combination.  The series isn't interested in making any grand statement about the nature of war or it's necessity (although those themes are, of course, touched upon).  Instead, it's a depiction of the men who fought World War II and the incredible situations they experienced, while developing lifelong bonds along the way.  There is no hand holding in regards to the plot, and there are no grand monologues attempting to explain it all.  It is, simply, a moving depiction of the events as they occurred.  

There aren't too many television shows out there that excel both as art and as an educational tool, but were a history teacher, I would feel as comfortable showing Band of Brothers to my classroom as I would sitting back and enjoying it at home on DVD with a spouse or a loved one.  It's that good.  "Why We Fight", the second to last episode, in particular is one of the finest hours of television ever.  Human beings could argue endlessly about the necessity of World War II or of any war, but there is no doubt that the stories of those men who fight in them deserves preservation.  For the soldiers who fought in World War II, and for the men of Easy Company in particular, I could think of no finer tribute than a near-perfect work of art such as Band of Brothers.

Walking Dead - Season 4, Episode 8 - Too Far Gone

I liked "Too Far Gone" a lot.  That isn't too surprising given that the mid-season finales of "Walking Dead" tend to be among the best episodes of any season.  And this one was playing with a stacked to begin since I was DESPERATE to spend an hour with any character other than "Brian" after the last two episodes.  But there was lots of stuff to like here.

Perhaps first and foremost, our time with The Governor has come to an end.  I have to say I didn't expect him to die here (even though I know some person(s) was getting the ax based on Facebook/Twitter chatter), but that's mostly because I don't think it makes any sense to kill him when they did.  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they did.  And after waffling back forth for a season and a half, I'm ready to declare that the character was indeed a failure in his television incarnation.  But why now?  Why not at the end of the third season?

Briefly perusing the reviews of this "Too Far Gone" on various sites, it was a common reaction: why wasn't this the finale to season 3?  And it's hard to come up with a good reason why it wasn't.  The logical ending to season 3 was the Governor and his people storming the prison and either succeeding, or failing with The Governor dying in the process.  Instead, we got a weird non-ending only to have The Governor pop up again a few episodes into the next season, ramble through a couple of mostly boring episodes designed to build up his back story, then die anyway.  I thought those Governor episodes were a waste of time when I watched them initially.  Now, knowing that The Governor and most of the characters he met are now dead, I think it was a waste of time and I want my two hours back too.

But all that complaining aside, The Governor did meet his end in an extremely fitting manner, and this was an incredibly eventful episode otherwise.  Hershel bit the bullet (in probably the most affecting death in the history of the series) along with Judith.  The final action sequence was up to the incredible standard of this show, and several characters had genuinely cool heroic moments (Darryl, Michonne, and Carl primary among them).  Furthermore, at the end of it all, Rick and company appear to be scattered to the winds.  It looks like they've hit the reset button on The Walking Dead again, and that is probably for the best.  The show tends to get stale when bogged down in one place for too long.  

I don't know how long our heroes will be separated, but I look forward to them perhaps having some isolated adventures and  meeting up with new, unique characters.  I'm also curious to see if the show will introduce a new "big bad", or if the focus will be more on the characters surviving on the road and fighting zombies.  The aftermath of Hershel's death should also be interesting.  It will be tough to wait until February, but "Too Far Gone" succeeded in keeping me hooked until then.

Walking Dead - Season 4, Episode 7 - Dead Weight

Well, I'll give this twosome of Governor-centric episodes of Walking Dead this much: they have succeeded in giving The Governor a lot more depth as a character (of course, they were starting from zero, so any development in that area would have been an improvement).  Unfortunately, the bad part is that, even after spending these two hours with The Governor, I just don't like him very much.  And that isn't because he is a bad guy.  Merle was (mostly) a bad guy, but I recognized his value as a character.  I don't like The Governor because, despite the best efforts of this show, he just isn't very interesting.

I used to think that the performance of David Morrissey wasn't the problem with The Governor.  After "Dead Weight", though, I'm not sure anymore.  You see, we're a season and a half into this Governor thing, and it still just hasn't clicked.  Sure, you could blame the problems with the character on the writing, but if Morrissey were truly great in the role, he would have risen above such issues by now.  Walking Dead the TV show obviously decided to go a different route with the character of The Governor than the comic, but I'm wondering now if they wouldn't have been better served sticking more closely to the comic book version.

The Governor in the comics is a lot less complex character than the one they are trying to create with the TV show, but he is a lot more interesting.  And a character like that (with little more motivation or backstory other than being a complete and utter evil psycho) might have been a little easier for the show to convey.  Alas, that ship has sailed, and we are stuck with this version of The Governor.  As I said, all is not lost: the character has become somewhat more compelling over the last two episodes.  But I REALLY wish they had compressed this story into one episode instead of two.  Yes, the transformation "Brian" undergoes might have been a little more jarring under those circumstances, but the Walking Dead is hardly Shakespeare in the first place, so why concern ourselves with quibbles like that now?

I complain a lot about the main characters of Walking Dead (mostly about how boring/unnecessary/poorly-written most of them are), but I was absolutely begging for anybody (yes, even Bob or Carl) from the main story-line to pop up during this episode.  The characters we meet in "Dead Weight" are all pretty uninteresting, and most of them will probably be dead within a few episodes anyway, so why force us to spend an hour with them (and only them)?  Luckily, this episode ended on a note that indicates our weekly Governor Power Hour is finished, and some stuff might actually happen that affects our main characters (you know, the ones we have spent four seasons with and actually care about?).  Cheers for that, at least.

The Pro Basketball Talk - The Next Crop of International NBA Greats

http://www.theprobasketballtalk.com/2013/12/the-next-crop-of-international-nba.html