Band of Brothers changed that for me. This DVD set is a must for anyone who is interested in military history or simply a compelling story. Truth is stranger than fiction. It is also more compelling.
The 10 episodes are generally good but there were one or two that I did not think measured up to the rest. Each was directed by a different director and took different views of the events from the book. With each episode being somewhat encapsulated by this, yet the series is basically, chronological. In turn this makes the 600 or so minutes of program go through many emotional and stressful change ups.
My personal favorites are the first three episodes and the holocaust episode. The first two do a great job of setting up the company and the individual men. The thirs is D-Day and does an incredible job of showing how terrible and confusing combat is. The Holocaust episode I thought was one of the strongest though. It was simply a fine example of soldiers coming across a concentration camp and not knowing exactly what it was about. The horrors and atrocities speak for themselves and are very much put into the context of the episode rather than preaching the obvious facts that Nazi's were despicable.
From a production values perpective, Band of Brothers is incredible. Watching the "making of" really illustrated how much effort went into the show. There were a few minor technical issues, like red telephone boxes in WWII UK (those popped up after the war, according to a Brit friend watching along with me).
As a role playing guy (and a WWII miniatures one to boot), Band of Borthers is a really good example of a combat oriented drama. I think players and a GM could learn valuable lessons for their roles in a game. There is nothing over the top in Band of Brothers given its non-fiction basis. Yet it is an increibly compelling story. I think there could be a lot of neat applications of that story telling for any RPG focused on combat and warfare.
Band of Brothers is worthy of any DVD library and one of the best things to be shown on TV that was not a sporting event.
