HBO
Okay, I must confess something. When I first decided I wanted to do a series on my blog about the best TV in the last ten years, it was 2011. And as I have begun to write the series time has marched on, as they say. So I am telling on myself right up front that Band of Brothers originally aired on HBO in 2001, just missing my 10 year parameter. But I'm keeping it. Because it was still legal when I made the list.
Band of Brothers is an amazing recount of several men that were part of "Easy Company" (of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division in the United States Army). This is World War II. These were real guys - kids, really. Who needs "super-hero" movies? Just watch this and be amazed.
The executive producers were none other than Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks who had collaborated together to produce Saving Private Ryan in 1998. Easy Company began to intrigue them during the making of that film and the book Band of Brothers by Steven Ambrose, was the basis of this mini-series.
This wonderful mini-series followed these guys from Jump Training School at Camp Toccoa Georgia, on to their parachute drop in Normandy, Operation Market Garden, the Siege of Bastogne, all the way to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. Yes, there was a lot of artistic license taken in embellishing the facts here, but the gist is there.
One thing I loved is that during the course of the episodes, they would often stop and get the comments of the real life men who were there. These were the real life heroes in the series. I would choke up hearing them speak. I remember one man commenting that now, on very cold nights, climbing into bed, he will often comment to his wife, "I'd still rather be here, than in Bastogne." Bastogne - commonly referred by us as the Battle of the Bulge, had these guys trapped in a small area for three of the coldest months on record in France without winter clothing. WITHOUT winter clothing. How they survived at all is a miracle. And a tribute to the character of these men.
This mini-series consisted of 10 episodes, 11 if you count a special feature at the end. At the time it was the most expensive mini-series ever produced, costing a whopping 12.5 million an episode to make. Luckily the BBC bought in, and they were able to show it too.
Episode 11 was the special feature. We got to see the real-life men we'd just seen depicted in 10 episodes. And they were regular, unassuming guys. I wanted to shout "Don't you know how great you are?", but they were fighting for a real cause, under a real leader, and were really doing something. Just like our best and brightest are doing in Afghanistan right now - but I digress. Listening to the Band of Brothers talk was so moving to me, that I began sobbing like a baby. At that minute, my girlfriend called. I was blubbering. She asked, "What is wrong?" I told her that if she hadn't seen the 10 episodes, I'd witnessed, she just wouldn't understand.
But maybe the greatest tribute to the Band of Brothers is my friend Jennifer Beardslee. Jennifer was diagnosed with cancer during this time frame, and it was serious. She had lost all her hair, the whole bit. She was pretty much figuring that this was it. And then she saw Band of Brothers. And she told me, "you know, if they can go through that, I can beat this." Jennifer is alive today, and she totally credits Band of Brothers for that.
I always wanted to write to Dick Winters and tell him that. But I never did. He died in 2011. And another of the Band, Shifty Powers, died the same day as Michael Jackson. A real hero like Shifty dies, nothing. A pedophile with a hit record? All the ink for a month. What is wrong with this picture?
And to you surviving Band of Brothers my hat is off to you. I am on my feet. And that is why Band of Brothers stays on this list.
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