Sunday September 9, 2001
Unknown
The story begins July 1942. Easy Company, 506th Battalion, 101st Airborne Corps arrive in Camp Toccoa in Georgia, under the supervision of Company leader, Captain Herbert Sobel.
Read Full Recap » (warning: possible spoilers!)"Come on, Gonorrhea, as a fellow Italian you should know that calling this crap spaghetti is a mortal sin." - Frank Perconte hide show
Although this is the first episode of a really great HBO series, I think that this first episode is really hard to follow. Not only are you being introduced to characters on the fly, which is fine, but in the next second you have no idea what their names are, and pretty soon you associate to them only by their faces.
This episode is all about the training before the war, and the introduction is really nice into this mini-series. The first few scenes really get you hooked in, and it takes off like a rocket. However, next half of the episode is painfully slow, creeping along with the men talking about how Easy Company is the best platoon.
Not a lot of story, it's just scenes of them in the training camp, but overall, it's a good start.
Impressive but a bit Confusing hide show
I finally did it! I finally got around to watching the first episode of a show that's already a classic. By the looks of it I will be watching the rest as it was interesting. But I have to admit that because of all the hype about the series I tried a bit harder to stay with it. It is kind of hard to remember who's who, what they said and what the relationship is between that person and the others. I tried to go off of little things they said or did to remember them and try to connect. And since I had no subs it was hard to hear their names or understand them from time to time even more so than regular shows because of the words they used were things I never heard of. Those words did make the show more authentic though. The clothes they wore were also impressive down to the boots. Also when I saw Schwimmer the first couple of seconds I had to laugh because usually that shouting meant something funny happened but he did a great job, because 5 minutes later I had forgotten he was a "Friend" for ten years and even more so hated his character. Another thing I had to warm up to was the "pretty picture" filming that I think I have Spielberg to thank for. Everything looked really clear HD style and at first I was thrown off by that, made some scenes seem less realistic even though it should have the opposite effect I guess. But that's just me and I'll get over it. So far great episode, good basis if you pay attention to everyone and I'm curious to see what they do next.
No man stands alone... hide show
Perfect small-screen story-telling personified. Excellent scripts, scenes, screenplay, acting, camerawork, location/settings, wardrobe, props.
Great characters begin to tell the story of how it was for a group of your 'average' American GI's who joined the elite of the armed forces - the Airborne.
The over the top star studdied cast doesnt detract one bit, from the story as you think it may do with so many heavyweights. No they all do their part - even Schwimmer - who has the unfortunate role of the company leader who is the main catalyst for the conflict in this episode. The focus of the story in this episode is to introduce the main characters and expose the audience to the little details of life at that time. To that end the episode succeeds in presenting the situation and providing an apphreciation to what it must have been like 50+yrs ago.
With the central thread of conflict and struggle cleverly generated to an internal struggle between the band and its supposed father figure, the screenplay is filled with enough action, trials and tribulations to ensure that viewers arent waiting for any low intensity scenes to double-time through, to the next. Therefore as a viewer you will find that you follow the story on an emotional level as well as one of listener/viewer.
Furthermore, there are a few very satisfying milestones littering the episode that brings our emotional levels up with the troop.
Overall there is a good pace to the episode which only adds to sense of expectancy, that the promise of the next episode brings and the opening shots of Operation Overlord.
A fantastic opening to what I see as the greatest TV war drama there has ever been. Its just a shame there werent more seasons made.
Big thanks to BBC2 for reshowing it this week - the week of National/Global Rememberance for the indescribable thanks we need to show for sacrifice of the dead on past generations (and future ones now).
Lest we forget....
Finally after watching the series over and over, I decided to finally write reviews of each episode. I am writing these knowing how the story goes along episode by episode. While you can say the episode is a flashback episode because story starts off a day before D-Day then flashes back two years on how the men of Easy Company 506 PIR started off. I found the introductions very well laid out. The extreme conditions that their commanding officer put the company through seemed a bit too harsh at the time went above and beyond the standards the other companies did in training. Even though you see only moments of each character, the dialogue and acting will get you feel what each soldier is enduring within the company. A great starting episode for an awesome series.
A captivating first episode. hide show
I`m a huge Tom Hanks fan, so I knew I`ve got to check this out. Besides, I`m always passionate with World War stories. So this first episode of Band of Brothers was more of an introductory episode (like most pilot) which sets up the mini series. Some intense and fun moments, the episode was more diverted towards the training.
David Schwimmer plays Lt. Herbert Sobel as a guest performance I guess. Hysterical, severe, abusing but yet bad on the field Soldier. I do hope he appears again later in the series.
All and all, it did get boring at times but most of it was captivating, sting up some amazing episodes. This looks promising.
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