Unless you are a hopeless, Vietnam-fixated hyper-Lefty, there doesn’t seem to be much of a reason to watch Steven Bochco’s new war series on FX, Over There. Supposedly a realistic look at the current war in Iraq from the “men-in-the-field” point of view, my concern from the very first time I found out about the show was that it would be an anti-war effort from the Hollywood Left, and that with modern film-making techniques, along with the “artistic” freedoms of a cable channel, it would be harrowing and effective, even if it spoke many un-truths.

I’ll confess that I’m writing this without having seen the entire first episode. I watched the opening segment The First Battle from the CD that was distributed in Time Magazine, and as an adrenaline pump, it’s pretty effective. As a true reflection of the caliber and professionalism of those men and women serving in Iraq, it stinks!

Opening with a rather explicit sex scene featuring one of the guys and his wife “gettin’ it on” in every room of their little house and then moving to a loud domestic quarrel, hell an all out verbal fight, between another of the squad and his wife as he’s leaving to go back to Iraq, then he blows off his kid who was sitting outside listening to the whole thing. After getting in country, your next image is a black guy smoking a joint, out in the open, observed by others. Right! Maybe in Viet Nam, but I don’t think that this is happening today in Iraq. But since I didn’t get to watch the rest of it last night, here are some comments from mil-guys and others that did.

A contributor named “Ry” sent his comments in to Argghhh! plus there’s a lot of links to other reviews:

Okay, ‘Over There’ report: It’s pretty bad. Has just about all the old war movie cliches and ALL the lefty anti-war chliches (everyone’s there because they’re screw ups or poor, or the one guy who is dumb and actually wants to be there).
(…)
They tried to play this off as neutral in the press. It’s anything but. It’s hackneyed. It’s poorly written (if I can point out technical flaws you know it’s got a lot of problems). It’s the typical backdrop for doing other issues (like race, like gender, the role of mankind, etc). Don’t waste your time. Hopefully this will go down in flames like Cop Rock.

Argghhh! features a live-blog of the show and wrapup from The Middle Ground:

The characters were flat and stereotypes. The first soldier we see is a black man smoking a joint. On duty. Uh-huh. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have the illusion that all over our menn and women in uniform are perfect, but I am quite certain that that image is hardly typical so I suppose that first image was far too typical of post Vietnam concepts of soldiers. Then there was the last part of the episode where the soldiers are on the way to get some home made hooch and end up rolling up over an IED and wounding one. Again, so stuck in the post Vietnam genre of Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and a few other stereo type shows that attempts to portray soldiers as druggies, drunks and just guys searching for a good time while occasionally blowing off some ammo. Oh, and let’s not forget the anal, glory seeking officer that is willing to sacrifice his men for a few points and the sargent who suggests that other soldiers would be really happy if he was ‘fragged’.

Oiye! Somebody should tell Bochco and the writers that this isn’t 1971 and the desert isn’t any where near Khe Sahn.

Crazy Water picks it apart over at The Things That You Believe You Are Seeing:

Soldiers at Camp Murray in Tacoma, Washington were given a preview of the new Steven Bochco FX series “Over There” and it was not what Bochco expected. Of course you’ve heard by now how “true to life” and “gut-wrenching” this show was suppose to be. The media has been raving about it, so immediately I was suspicious. If the media thinks its realistic something must be afoot.

As far as Over There being apolitical, those soldiers at Camp Murray sure don’t see it that way.

But some camo-clad critics at Camp Murray were left wondering just what the message was in “Over There.” One said a young soldier who brags about slitting the throat of a child sentry “makes us look like murderers.”

Master Sgt. Jeff Clayton complained that cameras deliberately dragged out the death scenes of Iraqi insurgents after a firefight, lingering unnecessarily on the carnage. “It made me sick.”

And where, soldiers asked, were the scenes of soldiers building schools, Iraqi kids waving American flags?

I’m sure there’s a lot more, but I’ve other things to think about today. One thing I do know is that I won’t be wasting my time watching that DVD my friend is burning for me off his Tivo! (db)

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 28th, 2005 at 11:38 am and is filed under Fever Swamp Madness, Military Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.  |   Print This Post  |   Email This Post

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