Over There, somewhere

So, we’re now on the third or fourth episode of Over There. Unlike most of the Internet, I’ve actually watched the series before criticizing it. I watched the latest two episodes back to back last night on TiVo, in fact.

For a while now, it hasn’t really clicked for me in the same way as FX’s other hairy chested man series, like The Shield and Rescue Me, do. More importantly, it doesn’t click like the best of Stephen Bochco’s other work does, specifically Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue (at least before the latter got wimpy and silly).

Last night, I think I finally figured it out. It wasn’t the preachiness — all of the above shows did that at times, and really, Over There is probably the least preachy, most of the time, especially once all the competing messages are dumped atop each other — it’s the lack of realistic little details. Other than the soldier in the first episode eating coffee crystals from the packet, nothing in this show feels more realistic than one of the blur of Vietnam movies in the late 1980s. In fact, pretty much every element of the show feels ripped from someone else’s war movie. Now, I’m just an Army brat, not Army myself, but the whole thing feels very ersatz. I think Eric Palladino’s Sergeant Scream character has more to it than we saw at first, but really, does the world need yet another screaming sergeant angry whenever someone calls him “sir?” How many movies (not to mention the M*A*S*H TV show) have we seen the creeeepy military intelligence officer who lies every time he opens his mouth? And of course, the rest of the characters aren’t startlingly original, either.

But the coffee crystals (and Eric Palladino) are sticking with me. The show has potential. I think many of those working on the show are genuinely interested in creating an apolitical wartime TV show. If they can just stuff all the Hollywood types in a sack and get some (more) consultants there to load up the script and set dressing and direction with more vermisilitude, they’ll have a hit.

Right now, though, it tends to stay on the TiVo a week or two before I watch it.

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