[BoB REWATCH] Part One: Currahee & Part Two: Day of Days

[thrillingdetectivetales]

Welcome to the Band of Brothers rewatch discussion post for
PART ONE: CURRAHEE & PART TWO: DAY OF DAYS
You are welcome to discuss any and all aspects of the episodes in the comments on this post. Please recognize that others may hold different opinions than you and continue to abide by our #1 rule: don't be a dick. Additionally, I ask that y'all take care to keep spoiler content off of spoiler-free threads. Otherwise, have fun!

Part One: Currahee
Spoiler-free thread.
Spoiler-friendly thread.

Part Two: Day of Days
Spoiler-free thread.
Spoiler-friendly thread.

If you'd like to chat about the episode in real time, join us over on Discord:

The spoiler-free Discord chat.
The spoiler-friendly Discord chat.

Comments

Re: Part One: Currahee [SPOILER-FREE]

[yourlibrarian]

Thinking more on the issue, I suspect the fact that it is 20 years old has a lot to do with it (and it was surely written at minimum a year before it aired). I think we take for granted now how sophisticated shows have begun to assume their audiences to be. In fact, sometimes I think they've gotten a little too precious in assuming that audiences don't need some sort of narrative consistency. I can think, for example, of S2 of Legion as well as two other shows I've been watching recently -- The Young Pope and S2 of Westworld. (A large cast has also become very common whereas before you'd be more likely to have a small group of stock characters).

But I think that perhaps the writers felt they had to set up Winters right away as our main character as well as rush us along to Normandy as a way of satisfying viewer expectations. So we have a behind-the-lines hero and villain set up even before we get to the battlefield where S2 points out that the lines there can get muddled.

Re: Part One: Currahee [SPOILER-FREE]

[thrillingdetectivetales]

In fact, sometimes I think they've gotten a little too precious in assuming that audiences don't need some sort of narrative consistency.

Hear hear! I studied comics in college and one of the most consistent pieces of advice we were given when crafting narratives was to write to the "dumbest person in the room" for lack of a better term. (It could also be the most distracted person, or the person with the least existing knowledge of some kind of core subject matter, but I digress.) And while I think there's value in not spoon-feeding an audience and trusting them to arrive to conclusions on their own, I also think that writers and creators, particularly nowadays, can easily crawl so far into their own cleverness that they don't realize they're failing to achieve their overarching goal, which is to craft a narrative that appeals in some way or another to an audience of at least a certain size.

But I think that perhaps the writers felt they had to set up Winters right away as our main character as well as rush us along to Normandy as a way of satisfying viewer expectations.

I definitely agree with this point, particularly the bit about rushing the audience into the action as a hook to carry us through to the next episode. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts about Winters as the main character, now that you've watched a couple of the next episodes, as well. (I'll drop a more coherent question re: that on the spoiler-friendly thread of the next rewatch eps when I have a moment, lol.)

Re: Part One: Currahee [SPOILER-FREE]

[yourlibrarian]

I've now watched the whole series as our HBO access ends on Sunday. I decided not to move onto The Pacific because I won't be able to finish it by then. But I certainly wanted to after the series' end :) I've seen a few comments about it and I wonder if Winters as leader isn't a relevant issue there.

Re: Part One: Currahee [SPOILER-FREE]

[thrillingdetectivetales]

I've now watched the whole series as our HBO access ends on Sunday.

Oh, yay! I'm glad you got to watch it before your access ended. :) Excited to see the thoughts you may have for the next few episodes, too, haha.

We're doing a rewatch of The Pacific starting in January, and while I don't have any current plans to stream it I can try and figure something out if yourself and others would be interested. (No need to commit now or anything, just to keep in mind as the new year starts.)

I wonder if Winters as leader isn't a relevant issue there.

Apologies if I've read this statement the wrong way, but The Pacific follows the USMC rather than the Airborne, so none of the characters from Band of Brothers are involved. It's basically three storylines following three different guys through the Pacific theatre, and there are things I think it does...not necessarily better than Band of Brothers, but things it expands upon that BoB doesn't get into that I appreciated from a narrative perspective.

It has its shortcomings, too, of course, and there are things that I prefer the BoB narrative for, but overall it's a great show. (And rapidly becoming my area of expertise, of the two, haha.)

Re: Part One: Currahee [SPOILER-FREE]

[yourlibrarian]

Haha! This made me laugh at myself since we were just talking about narrative coherency :D

Sorry, what I meant was that I'd heard Pacific wasn't as good (or perhaps satisfying) as BoB, and given the importance of Winters' storyline to it, this made me wonder if it was a critical factor in the success of that series which Pacific would lack. But it sounds like it may be because it does things differently.

At any rate, yes I'd like to watch it but unfortunately it won't be until later next year. Other than Netflix and a live TV option we've been rotating through services for our third subscription and I don't expect to pick HBO up again until probably summer (by which time Max will be available). But I guess I can always pop back in here for the rewatch comments when I do :)