Ken Burns Disappoints?
I had eagerly awaited the first installment of Ken Burns documentary on WWII. While it was fine, it undershot my expectations. My expectations may be affected by the fact that, unlike the Civil War or other topics he has addressed, WWII has been done to death by documentaries. It may also be that WWII is so sprawling, its hard to get a handle on in his timeframe. After all, his series will be much shorter than the classic World at War and even than his own series on Baseball.
As with the Civil War, I thought the focus on a few American cities and the impact of the war worked pretty well. However, I found the narrator (Keith David) for this particular series sleep inducing, particularly after David McCullough in the Civil War did such an outstanding job (and he was not even a professional "voice") and after the incredible cast of voice-overs in that same series. Also, the organization seemed bizarre. Around the 2 hour mark, they seemed to be clearly wrapping up the first episode, with summaries of dead and injured in the first part of the war. But then all of a sudden they grafted on a short segment about Latinos and the marine raider battalion on Guadalcanal, and even a little snippet about Bougainville. And then it just ended suddenly. Made zero sense to me.
