Over There

Can't believe I missed this series when it debuted on American cable a couple of years back. Basically the show's about a squad of soldiers (7 privates plus their squad leader, a staff sgt), their lives in Iraq and the effect on their families. Besides the usual drama and stuff, what I find interesting is the action - there's plenty of it, and pretty realistic action too. There's also the stuff you see on the news: IEDs, the two sided nature of the enemy, moralistic dilemmas, etc. No surprise though that the stuff shown are still relevant now, since the situation hasn't changed much in Iraq.

Granted, the series is pretty pro-American, in the sense that most 'dilemmas' are resolved by the usual they-had-no-choice-but-to-do-it angle, but in doing so, they also highlight the hard decisions that the men on the ground had to make. To me, the message is simple: what you see on primetime news may not be what you get. So anti-war protesters who go around hooting that Americans are slaughtering civilians in Iraq, bla bla bla...maybe you should watch this series. There's always two sides to a coin.

The theme song and credits are cool too. Unlike most series, the credits and theme song play at the end, blending into the closing stages of the storyline. A nice touch, which together with the theme song (Chris Gerolmo's Over There) really created an atmosphere. As a fan of war movies and series, I highly recommend it. It's like Tour of Duty, except in Iraq: