Long response ahoy!
A weepy stringy sentimental opening is indeed a better and mores sensible option than the prospect some jingoistic brass-section-laden blastathon. But the tone comes off as overly manipulative. If it had lyrics I'd almost see them as something like "Oh, loook at these pooor poor young meeeen. Thrust into PERIL, PERIL I SAY. Awaaaaay from their homes, to Europe, to fight the goooood fight to defend the liberty of the people of the freeee WOOOOOORLD. Seee how they CARED for each other". This is just my opinion, but I see it as unnecessarily sensationalistic and melodramatic pandering. A good step better than Saving Private Ryan's extended Stars'n'Stripes hymn thingie and clumsy bookends with the veteran. In general, I think it just would've been a braver and better choice to just start off with a title card, leading into the fascinating preface interviews, instead of this type of emotional foreplay, so that I can have the liberty of making up my own mind instead of being handed everything on a silver platter. The series is strong enough to set it's own tone, even the scoring for the rest of the series is relatively sparse, with no soundtrack for any of the combat scenes.
Glossing over might be the wrong wording, but what I meant was: Why should I sympathize with a character who commits crimes such as this? Why should I at all like the Speirs character after the cigarette incident? Why should I feel any less disgust at him than at the French soldiers in one of the later episodes who execute some soldiers by the roadside? The Winters character at least shows some remorse over the killing of the adolescent soldier at the crest of the ridge, even though the real circumstances of the situation was quite different and more justifiable (the soldier threw a grenade at him, Winters threw a dud grenade back at him, forgetting to remove the tape around the handle, and shot him while the soldier was looking for cover). Then, after the action, he gives the trooper who seems eager to kill off some prisoners only one round of ammunition to guide them back to the lines.
I just feel this mild hypocrisy over how the series portrays rather serious crimes. The series has a fascination for showing such events, yet it doesn't take a stance as it neither justifies it nor condemns/punishes these. In the cigarette incident, for instance, in the second episode, where one of the prisoners speaks english, they are all standard Wehrmacht soldiers. Yet, in the next episode, where the killings are actually shown, suddenly they're prominently wearing SS uniforms. An honest continutity mistake or an attempt at gaining sympathy?
While it is rather bold, and should be applauded for the courage to portray that allied soldiers were not beyond committing such acts, why should I feel any warmth for these characters as the series never really goes into any depth to attempt to explain such behaviour (other than the character who had been informed of the death of his brother, or the escaped labour-camp commander being found later). I just see it as a big missed opportunity.
By and large, I found it a very well-made series and look forward to seeing what the new miniseries will be like. These two things are really the only things I can think of nitpicking about. Otherwise it's a brave, finely produced, intriguing, credible, and meritful series, like many other HBO productions. Superior to Saving Private Ryan in any case. In particular the Blythe, Bastogne medic, and final episode were particularly memorable as great episodes.
If you're really fascinated by the series, you should go read
this page , if you haven't already, which runs an interesting commentary by a historian. Starting on the third page he goes into an episode by episode commentary, confirming what is true, where liberties have been taken, filling in a whole bunch of holes, criticizing some decisions, but mostly applauding the series. It has some interesting parts, among others about how the real Speirs never said the "already dead" thing.
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Worth a million in prizes, baby.
If it breaks, you get to keep both pieces.
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