The Great War -- Eh

Watched part two of the latest Ken Burns docu-epic "The Great War." Disappointed.

Didn't see the first episode on Sunday. The Cowboys were on and you have to have priorities.

Anyway. I didn't like Monday's show because of two things I don't expect to see from a Ken Burns documentary: Repetition and shallowness.

The personal stories people told were moving. But they were short. Then he'd go back to the stock war footage everyone has seen about a million times: Cannons firing, planes crashing, bodies emaciating. It's not that this stuff doesn't have an impact. It just doesn't have an impact the 29th time you see it.

I kept on reaching for the remote to turn down the volume of the bombs.

Burns then spends all of 15 seconds introducing Gen. Patton. The best American general in the last century, and we get a brief intro into how he had "New ideas that helped America turn the tide." That's it?

In the Civil War, Burns gave Shelby Foote eight minutes to describe General Lee stopping along the road to make water. And included a map. Patton gets 15 seconds?

I'm guessing that Burns was probably intimidated by the scope of the whole thing, along with time constraints. He talked to live people, probably didn't want to hurt their feelings by not including them. Such is the advantage on doing a documentary on the Civil War, as everybody is for the most part dead. So, he instead includes everybody and never gets really deep into the subject.

Whatever. It's one episode. I'm hoping it picks up steam.