Steven Bochco's new FX show "Over There" seems to be getting short shrift from the milbloggers. Not all of whom seem to have actually watched it. It's interesting to note that many of their comment sections have a number of defenders though. Odd. Maybe it's that bloggers tend not to like much TV and spend most of their time, um, blogging, so they plugged in the old boob tube, watched the show and had their dislike of TV confirmed once again.
Anyhow, I actually liked it. Oh, sure there were moments that sucked, like the "intellectual" (Dim) going on about some pseudo-intellectual rot. Sure the veterans found howler after howler, but well, most of us find that in anything we know about, too. Consider Star Trek from a physics point of view (e.g. "Heisenberg Compensators").
What I liked was that Hollywood is addressing this war as something other than M*A*S*H or VietNam, with normal Americans in harsh conditions trying to do good. I feared the show would be leftist cant; it isn't. If there is any political bias it's pro, not anti. Seeing the troops bagging a terrorist who's shouting random BS anti-American slogans as he's being carted off, while the enemy-embedded al-Jazeera reporter is treated with contempt and derision; well it's hardly what you'd expect from Hollywood.
Sure this show could get really bad really fast. But it could also get really good -- FX's track record is pretty good here. The main problem is the political tightrope it walks and the obvious low cable-channel budget. I'm encouraged by how few in the MSM liked it, though. They must be doing something right.
UPDATE: Another supporter.
I also haven't seen it, but if the MilBloggers are half right, then the number and severity of errors they list can't be sheer incompetence -- it has to be a willful intent to throw realism out for story, and I think that is completely unnecessary. Even a show like Stargate SG-1 can go with the unbelievable from a physics standpoint while still keeping pretty faithful from a military standpoint.
Posted by: Phelps at August 2, 2005 01:05 PMI don't know about Stargate -- I watched the first few episodes way back when and thought they were very unrealistic from any standpoint.
Posted by: Kevin Murphy at August 2, 2005 01:46 PMThe number of inaccuracies are most probably due to the fact that the overall gestalt of the war, the thing they are trying to communicate to the great majority of Americans who neither have the time, inclination, or ability to study military science, is only dimly understood by the writers, producers, special effects makers, and etc.
They are the blind leading the blind. That is not to say it is ineffective and tragic, but you do have to understand the inherent physical and technical and philosophical limitations of such a situation. The producers of the show do not have a full COMBAT GESTALT of the warrior/killer/soldier psychological archetype. So they make do with what they do have, which are stories, regular old fiction writers for sitcoms and soap operas, and technical advisers from whatever background they cna afford to hire.
As a result, you will have numerous inaccuracies. And so a real MilBlogger won't have his fix of the Real Deal, but then again few of us ever get what we REALLY WANT in life, and bitching and complaining is a soldierly trait. It isn't of any worth in an actual review. If you improve the M16 from the A1 to the A2, you have gotten a lot of the jams fixed, but there's still plenty to bitch about.
Which is why Over There, while superior in almost every way to the MSM's portrayal of the war, is being stomped on hard by hardcore military dudes and softcore media personas.
Doesn't mean it is balanced, it just means everyone has a motivation to fight it.
Soldiers are good at fighting. People like me, are good at propaganda. It is the difference between writing words, and shooting bullets. They are anathema to each other, civilian and military, but they are both required to live a sustained existence.
It would do a lot of people much good, to understand that you should leave the fighting in Iraq to soldiers, and that you should really really leave the propagandizing to people that understand human psychological and entertainment value. Never mix the two, or go ahead if you like to see what happens when a proton meets an anti-proton.
FX understands the latter, I understand both but have most of my actual experience in learning propaganda. Military Intel probably have a more balanced of the two. Special Forces Operators I know have the Full Deal on both sides.
If you get a SF Operator, one who specializes in guerrila counter-insurgency and psychological warfare (that probably includes most of them), and have him analyze the ENTIRE SERIES, you'd learn a lot. A lot more than you thought you'd have "figured out" about Over There.
Over There has the potential to be the best propaganda show of the new century, a show that will live on in the memories of people for a long long time. It behooves people that want to judge it, to understand exactly what and how it is accomplishing that fact.
However, just as many people have no time, inclination, or ability to understand military science, a lot of military people have no time, inclination, or ability to understand propaganda, Public Relations, or word smithing. And therefore they tend to want to dissassociate themselves from the dirty work, but in the process this allows the enemy to seize the initiative and take over a bunch of PR territory. This is why a lot of the combat forces are conservative gung-ho killers, and why a lot of professors and actors are as liberal as a sippable sundue being poured at Steak and Shake. Doppler shift, get it?
That's sad, but that's just how it is. Ignorance is the only common human trait, other than mortality and a few others not worth mentioning.