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I wrote up a review of the new Steven Bochco show on FX "Over There" for a friend of mine and thought I'd pass it along in case anyone else was interested.

He was relating that he hadn't seen the show due to misgivings that it would be "war as entertainment", as well as being pro-war propaganda to which I replied...

It depends on what you mean by 'entertainment'. If you're referring to something entertainment as something which "amuses or pleases", no it's not entertainment.

Do you think the movie "Alien" or "Aliens" was entertaining? If so, then 'OT' is entertaining in an 'Alien' way - but it's definitely not entertaining in say a 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' way.

Nor do I think it could be seen as pro-war propaganda - if I recall the last two or three episodes I've seen the 'soldiers' express their thoughts on say the lack of their enthusiasm for risking their lives for oil... In general the show focuses on the soldiers (and their families as I'll mention later) and barely references (except indirectly) anyone higher up the food chain e.g. generals, Bush, etc.

Do you recall how the old 'MASH' program was a comedy but would occasionally 'get serious'? My take is that each 'OT' episode is 'serious'.

Yeah, the kinda folks who got excited when the anti-heros in "Natural Born Killers" blew away people might find something initially to enjoy about the show but I suspect they'd be turned off by it and quite watching because while there's plenty of violence it's not gratuitous - the show I think is spending the time to help the viewer understand the ramifications of the violence which Bush has unleashed.

(When the Dalai Lama spoke @ UT last week near the end of the talk he commented along the lines that one problem with solving problems using violence is that it's unpredicable - once you've released it, you lose control and cannot predict the consequences of what will happen and that usually violence spawns violence [1]. That's a theme which I think many of those who supported / support the war I think don't understand but which the show manages to convey).

[1] About 70:50 into the archived stream of his talk here.

The structure of the show splits between following around the 'fire team' (the unit in Iraq) and some folks stateside (one member of the unit who lost his leg and believes he can get back once he learns to use his prosthetic, one husband, one wife who's life is imploding from her refusal to take responsibility for her life, etc.).

Even for those of us who think we might 'know' based on reading the paper, etc. the hardships faced by both the soldiers in Iraq as well as their families the show can IMHO provide insights (if we assume that it's depicting something closer to reality than an agenda).

For instance it appears that soldiers are given 5 minutes of phone time / day to call home (that could be misunderstanding of a brief scene in which a sergeant offered his calling card to another soldier); in another case a female shoulder suffered shrapnel to one eye, once she was patched up she was back in the field (with a bandage over the eye) (if losing depth perception is anything like losing ability to hear 3d, I'd hate to be a soldier w/o depth perception), etc.

Wrt to the soldiers, their family and the average Iraqi, I think the show manages to express a very compassionate POV - instead of taking an "us vs. them" approach it shows (as best it can I think, keep in mind it's a 1h show) the effects of the war on all of the 'on the ground' participants - the Iraqis included.

I think it'd be worth your while to check out a few episodes.

However don't blame me if you find it depressing though. I'm finding that after each episode I'm left with the feeling of "JHC, what has Bush gotten us into?" but I think it's still worth watching even if only from a quasi-'witnessing' perspective.

All of this is IMHO of course, YMMV.