When I first watched The Pacific I fast-forwarded through most of the Basilone bits, largely because they felt very tonally disparate from the stories of Leckie and Sledge. I've definitely developed a greater appreciation for them after sitting through them but I still feel like, overall, the creative team did Basilone a disservice by trying to jam his story in alongside two others.

I would have loved to see it have the space to really detail how heroic the stuff he did truly was, or seen it from Lena's POV or something. As it is, I definitely feel for his men, and for Lena, but the show doesn't do a very good job of explaining what exactly John did or why it was so heroic and I think his storyline overall suffers for it.

He would have made more sense in a series that had a slightly more guts-and-glory focus, like BoB, I think, though Jon Seda is a very pretty man and I didn't mind watching him one bit.