I've found this show to be outstanding up to this point, but Episode 7 I felt lacked attention to detail. It feels rushed, and is just not very good.
The Good: The Stalag scenes are fantastic, and convey much of the environment exceedingly well. I liked too how it was circumspect in showing its impact on the men. We didn't see too much here, but everything we saw was important, from the radio, to the cat, to the impact captivity is having on the men- Egan especially.
Nate Mann continues to kill it as (now) captain Robert Rosenthal. Rosie is very well portrayed here. A legend of a man, and it is great to see him here stand up for what he believes. The scene where he re-ups is one of the best in the series.
The scenes of chaos when the bombers return was quite good.
The Bad: There was a pretty clear drop in the quality of the CGI on this episode. Likewise, one of the scenes where Rosie and his crew exits their plane shows how the prop model had aged- the panels on the plane appear flat and paper-mache'd. In general, the plane and flying parts of this episode just didn't look very good. Likewise, the 'action' is not really conveyed well, or long enough in this instance.
The downtime shown here isn't very compelling, I felt. After a few episodes that were heavy with emotion and nuance, this one just felt flat, or maybe raw, to me. I don't think Kidd would have let out that the mission requirements were going up from 25 to 30 in public as he does, and the reaction to it, although believable, felt staged for drama's sake. It is especially unnecessary because we get the same information conveyed much more effectively (and realistically) in the Rosie re-up scene. We don't need to be told things twice in the same episode, especially in a series we know from all accounts was very pressed for both budget and time.
The Ugly: As in episode 2, we again see them get a guy's rank wrong when a lieutenant is called a major by his C/O. That is inexcusable for a show of this kind of detail.
I knew from an interview it was coming, but having the bombers still be F models in 1944 is inaccurate. All of the new planes coming after later '43 would be Gs with the chin turret. This was a cost-saving measure, but it is a pretty huge oversight... again money is being spent on things the series doesn't need, but not being spent on things that would increase its accuracy. Bad choices.
Crosby, Crosby, Crosby. His book is quite discrete about what he may or may not have gotten up to with the women he met in England. To have his 'possible' affair portrayed as blatantly as shown here is a bit of an insult to him and his family, IMO. Although a reading of his book certainly suggests he was unfaithful, and I think we can sympathize with his reasons, I don't think we needed to see it to get the point across. Furthermore, why do we need TWO bedroom scenes to make the point? Again, it's redundant storytelling in a show that is already extremely pressed for time and funding.
This all is made a bit worse by the preview of episode 8, which portrays Westgate potentially as a spy... Let's be clear here, the woman Crosby names in his book is never fully identified. It is likely he used a pseudonym in the first place, and there is no clear evidence of who she was in any which way. For a show of this (so far) historical accuracy to delve into pure speculative fiction is quite annoying.
EDIT: I'm coming back to this after a day's thought because it occurred to me also that this episode has some major continuity errors both within itself and across the broader show: At the POW camp, which earlier in the episode HEARD the bombs just 1-2 days earlier, there's snow on the ground. In this scene over Berlin, there is no snow... likewise in Thorpe Abbotts in the same time (early March), the trees are fully leaved as in summer. Then, when the Great Escape happens (late March) there is again snow on the ground. Poor continuity.
Rosie's bombardier drops his own bombs on target, despite us being told several times through the series (including just 2 episodes ago) that the group drops their bombs when the lead plane drops. Again, some real poor continuity on display in this episode.
After the quality the show has shown up to this point, Episode 7 is a real letdown. Continuity errors. Historical accuracy errors. Speculative fiction and dramatization about its characters. Why such a drop?
The Good: The Stalag scenes are fantastic, and convey much of the environment exceedingly well. I liked too how it was circumspect in showing its impact on the men. We didn't see too much here, but everything we saw was important, from the radio, to the cat, to the impact captivity is having on the men- Egan especially.
Nate Mann continues to kill it as (now) captain Robert Rosenthal. Rosie is very well portrayed here. A legend of a man, and it is great to see him here stand up for what he believes. The scene where he re-ups is one of the best in the series.
The scenes of chaos when the bombers return was quite good.
The Bad: There was a pretty clear drop in the quality of the CGI on this episode. Likewise, one of the scenes where Rosie and his crew exits their plane shows how the prop model had aged- the panels on the plane appear flat and paper-mache'd. In general, the plane and flying parts of this episode just didn't look very good. Likewise, the 'action' is not really conveyed well, or long enough in this instance.
The downtime shown here isn't very compelling, I felt. After a few episodes that were heavy with emotion and nuance, this one just felt flat, or maybe raw, to me. I don't think Kidd would have let out that the mission requirements were going up from 25 to 30 in public as he does, and the reaction to it, although believable, felt staged for drama's sake. It is especially unnecessary because we get the same information conveyed much more effectively (and realistically) in the Rosie re-up scene. We don't need to be told things twice in the same episode, especially in a series we know from all accounts was very pressed for both budget and time.
The Ugly: As in episode 2, we again see them get a guy's rank wrong when a lieutenant is called a major by his C/O. That is inexcusable for a show of this kind of detail.
I knew from an interview it was coming, but having the bombers still be F models in 1944 is inaccurate. All of the new planes coming after later '43 would be Gs with the chin turret. This was a cost-saving measure, but it is a pretty huge oversight... again money is being spent on things the series doesn't need, but not being spent on things that would increase its accuracy. Bad choices.
Crosby, Crosby, Crosby. His book is quite discrete about what he may or may not have gotten up to with the women he met in England. To have his 'possible' affair portrayed as blatantly as shown here is a bit of an insult to him and his family, IMO. Although a reading of his book certainly suggests he was unfaithful, and I think we can sympathize with his reasons, I don't think we needed to see it to get the point across. Furthermore, why do we need TWO bedroom scenes to make the point? Again, it's redundant storytelling in a show that is already extremely pressed for time and funding.
This all is made a bit worse by the preview of episode 8, which portrays Westgate potentially as a spy... Let's be clear here, the woman Crosby names in his book is never fully identified. It is likely he used a pseudonym in the first place, and there is no clear evidence of who she was in any which way. For a show of this (so far) historical accuracy to delve into pure speculative fiction is quite annoying.
EDIT: I'm coming back to this after a day's thought because it occurred to me also that this episode has some major continuity errors both within itself and across the broader show: At the POW camp, which earlier in the episode HEARD the bombs just 1-2 days earlier, there's snow on the ground. In this scene over Berlin, there is no snow... likewise in Thorpe Abbotts in the same time (early March), the trees are fully leaved as in summer. Then, when the Great Escape happens (late March) there is again snow on the ground. Poor continuity.
Rosie's bombardier drops his own bombs on target, despite us being told several times through the series (including just 2 episodes ago) that the group drops their bombs when the lead plane drops. Again, some real poor continuity on display in this episode.
After the quality the show has shown up to this point, Episode 7 is a real letdown. Continuity errors. Historical accuracy errors. Speculative fiction and dramatization about its characters. Why such a drop?