A lavish, moving drama centering around a ragtag band of soldiers fighting their way across Europe,
Band of Brothers is an incredible testament to the bravery and ingenuity of the WWII military. From a technical standpoint, it's astounding - easily equal to most big-budget films, and often better. The settings, music, sound-mix, acting - everything combines to form an amazing period piece.
On the other hand, the story-telling itself has some issues. For one thing, like in
Saving Private Ryan, I had a lot of difficulty keeping up with the varied members of the humongous cast. This made it much harder to empathize with those that lived or died. Many times I found myself asking "Wait, was that ____ who just died?" or "Has ____ been here the whole time?" It isn't helped by the fact that there are frequent new faces as replacements fill the ranks, and who sometimes act as protagonist for an episode. A heavy dose of action (exquisitely filmed and executed) early in the series also distracts from character development, and in the end I could number very few of the men by personality rather than name.
