Which, to he clear, is why I personally prefer it over Band of Brothers. Where Band of Brothers drags in the middle (even the second episode is middling, IMHO, like all the dullest moments of Saving Private Ryan), The Pacific has the advantage of multiple narratives leading to continually exploring new characters and experiences with multiple climaxes, not just one long, plodding yawn from Normandy to the Eagle’s Nest (basically, I like the first episode of BoB and the last, the rest are just “meh”).
And never mind the plagiarism: Ambrose simply cannot be forgiven for whitewashing a war crime on the one hand and on the other hand nearly erasing from history one of the few men to go on to serve as a professional solider (I refer to Albert Blithe).
Ambrose might have had consulting credit but he didn’t write the tv show. I don’t think he can be blamed for Blithe. He didn’t independently verify his story because in the book he is barely mentioned. I think he’s in two sentences in the entire book. The writers of the tv series decided to make Blithe the central character in one of the episodes. I never could figure out why. They relied on the faulty memories of very old men and wrote the episode based on bad information.
I find “Carentan”’a tough watch because of issue of Blithe and because of Marc Warren’s awful American accent. It stands out as particularly bad because of all of the good accents from the other actors. I disagree about the rest. I think every episode is great.
I recall watching The Winds of War back in the early 80s. I remember being at an organizational meeting one evening where the chair made the comment, “let’s get through the last two items on the agenda so folks can go home tonight in time to watch the Winds of War.”
Streaming video has the pants beat off of old school network-driven ‘appointment tv’ when it comes to convenience, but I sometimes miss the whole shared experience thing when you’d have watercooler discussions about the latest episode of a miniseries with coworkers the following morning.
Clarification needed: Some series start out as miniseries of , say 7 or 8 episodes but, because of their popularity, come back for a second season of 7 or 8 episodes and, sometimes, even a 3rd season. Does that disqualify them even though they started out as a miniseries?
I agree with that. There were only three major networks and if one of them had a big miniseries, most people were watching that. It was nice to be able to discuss the show at school or at work, knowing that everyone had seen the same episode you had.
Off-topic, but that was also true of the prime-time soaps like Dallas, Dynasty, or Knot’s Landing. Not that I particularly cared who shot JR, but that question generated a lot of discussion.
As OP I have already decreed that Big Little Lies Season 1 is BOTH a miniseries (what it was intended to be) AND the first season of a series. What else can we do? The miniseries was so financially successful that – with Meryl Streep begging to get involved – season 2 was made despite that Season 1 was a perfect, complete story.
There may always be ambiguity, but it is better to let a creation qualify in two categories than to not qualify for any category. That category-less fate may have befallen Odyssey (1997) which was arguably not a “movie” – it was shown in 2 parts – but not a “miniseries” either, with total length barely 3 hours. I happened to like that movie/mini, but to avoid contention might not mention it in EITHER a “favorite movie” thread or a “favorite miniseries” thread.
Speaking of Odyssey, I see one google hittee prefers the 1997 movie/mini over the 2026 movie. I’ve not seen the 2026 Odyssey yet but learn there was disappointment. Apparently it deviates from Homer’s version. I can understand screenwriters trying to improve on one of Harlan Coben’s “schlocky” novels, but trying to outdo the legendary author who was the the novelist G.O.A.T. throughout a 25-century span?? Does that not seem a bit too pretentious??
Plus… On August 25th the author (Liane Moriarty) is putting out a new book that is a sequel of Big Little Lies. It will be Big Little Truths. So if (when?) they do a miniseries of that book, then would that count for this thread?
Well, it was so popular that they commissioned a second miniseries and a TV spinoff. And then there was a reboot of the series. But it’s still a miniseries.
Is that a problem for this thread? Did I miss a rule by the OP or something?
