I saw that my local Best Buy was selling Ken Burns latest series on DVD. I saw the last of the episodes on PBS the other night.
First off, don't expect this series to cover the whole war, that's too ambitious for a 14 hour series to try to do. There are some pretty big omissions. For one, there's no mention of the Russian invasion of Poland along with Germany. In addition, some of the stock footage was used multiple times through the series.
This is no Civil War, but nonetheless Ken Burns is probably going to win some awards for this series. I like the fact that it told the story through the eyes, hearts, and feelings of four American towns, and the families in them. I think if you approach the series with that in mind you will see this project in the proper context. Many people were expecting a Civil War treatment of the whole experience; which is too much for a seven part series to tackle. It would probably be 30 hours long, and I can't see much of the public sitting through the whole series. If you want to learn about WWII take a few college courses on it, and get a library card and check out many of the great books written about it.
Overall, the experience was pretty powerful. I may purchase this for the library, but its such an emotional journey that I don't see myself watching it that often. More for reference than anything else.
Again, that's a maybe. What did you guys think?
