If you choose BOB, make sure to allot enough time to watch "We Stand Alone Together". It's an hour long companion piece featuring interviews with surviving members of Easy company. it puts a real face on the series.
BOB is as historically accurate as "Saving Private Ryan" right down to the Thompsons with no cutts compensator. Someone went to great lengths to make BOB look as realistic as possible. Just one more reason it's such a great series.
I really liked Band of Brothers. It's a fantastic mini-series. And the fact that it's a true story does change how you view the characters in the series. Ever since it's aired I've kept up to date with news about the members of Easy Company. And there has been a level of sadness that's come with the news of the passing of some of these soldiers who were immortalized in the series. But I think that level of humanity is part of what drew me into the series. So by all means, watch
Band of Brothers.
On the same note, check out
John Adams. It's also a mini-series and based on historical events. It was produced by the same people who did
Band of Brothers and was based on the work of historian David McCullough. John Adams was not the most likable person. And I think Paul Giammatti conveyed that well. But he was a man that America needed as the colonies separated from England to establish the United States. I think it was well worth watching, and I'm glad that HBO continues to show marathons of the series around Independence Day in an effort to remind Americans of how the country was founded.
But what series did I vote for? That would be
The Wire. And that's because showrunner David Simon treated the audience like adults and took a long, hard look at the nature of crime in our inner cities. Baltimore served as a microcosm of how crime affects our urban culture. And over the course of 5 seasons the series addressed TOUGH issues like drug dealing and addiction, the challenges of policing, organized crime, corruption of unions, the trouble in our schools, and the challenges of capturing the truth of what's actually happening in our cities with newspapers and the media.
The Wire takes a serious commitment on the part of the viewer. But I felt that time was very well spent. And my positive viewing experience with
The Wire led me to check out David Simon's next HBO series
Treme.
). I liked Six feet a lot more than I thought I would. Deadwood is awesome too. I haven't seen the others. Rome would be my first choice.
