So much average

As Good As It Gets

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Absolutely one of the finest pieces of television ever produced. This is a staggering 26 part series on the First World War that lays out clearly how we got there and what happened to to the people in the middle of it. Rarely have the horrors and cost of war been so beautifully explained. This is the place to start if you want to know anything about the war. Unfortunately its so good that almost every other series on the war has paled in comparison. Its finely detailed but never overwhelming and the sort of show that makes you regret that each episode is ending. You simply want to keep watching the series because its so compelling. It a series that everyone should see because it explains not only the world of 1914 but also the world to day and is a warning to all of us about what can happen when governments fail to really think. Somewhere beyond recommended.Sadly this is not readily available in the United States and I had to secure a copy from England. I really wish some one like PBS or the Discovery Channel Networks would pick this up and run it because this has been too long hidden from view.

What a treasure this series is. Before I got The Great War I thought I'd never see an informative, not to mention cinematic, documentary about World War I. This was a war that was hugely influential on the modern world, yet you can learn hardly anything about it in schools or on television. So much is said about World War II, but if there was no first war there's a good chance there would not have been a second. The series contains 26 episodes; each episode lasts for about 40 minutes. That means there's a great deal of footage and information. Episode "on the idle hill of summer..." begins the series. The situation of pre-war Europe is explained in detail and style. Imperial Germany had become a major world power, with perhaps the strongest army in the world and the second largest navy in the world. This caused anxiety and a change in policies by other European powers. It was a time of great innovation. Europeans controlled about 80% of the world through colonialism. It was still the age of steam, yet many inventions that would become very important later were constantly being introduced. The assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Slavic nationalist Gavrilo Princip would draw all the European powers and eventually the world into a war that would cause Europe's end as the center of civilization. World War I included great battles. Millions of lives were lost. All this is covered expertly in the series. Interviewees appeared in several episodes.The music for the series was composed by Wilfred Josephs. It was performed by the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra conducted by George Hurst. His expressive yet unsentimental score was widely acclaimed at the time, and many have recalled the strong contribution it made to the series. In addition to Joseph's original score, much use was made of some great 20th Century symphonies; Shostakovitch's 11th and Vaughan Williams Sinfonia Antartica, to name two. The narration by Michael Redgrave is excellent. The series, unparalleled at the time for its depth of research, range of source material and historical accuracy - all presented in a sequence of clear narratives - is now considered one of the finest achievements of BBC documentary. The Great War really shows how great a conflict World War I was. It was epic. Following transmission of the series by the Republic of Ireland's national TV station, Telefis Eireann, The Great War won a Jacob's Award at the 1964 presentation ceremony in Dublin. There appear to be two releases as of mid-2007, both in the UK, both Region 2. If you like documentaries then don't miss out on this series. It is now a favourite of mine.

Quite simply the definitive documentary on the First World War. 26 40-minute episodes which do as much as any book to encapsulate the 1914-1918 conflict. I'd go so far as to say it surpasses the World at War (which basically copied it!) as THE television documentary. The narration is perfectly pitched, the soundtrack is stunning, and there were enough veterans from all sides to add personal insights into the war. But what I think lifts it above all other Great War programmes (apart from the length) is that it gives airtime to campaigns that simply don't get a look in normally - the Eastern Front and Palestine; there are even lengthy segments on the war at sea with some excellent archive footage. If you've got a day to spare, watch it all in one go: you'll be better for it...

I first saw this series when it was repeated by the BBC in the early Seventies on Sunday afternoons. I watched several of the episodes with my grandmother whose beloved brother died at the Battle of the Somme. It is one of the main reasons that I am interested in the First World War, why I became a historian and why I take groups of schoolchildren to the battlefields every year. After years of claiming it was 'out of date' and 'unshowable' the BBC have released it on video/DVD and shown it on TV on Saturday evenings. As I started to watch the first episode the hairs on the back of my neck stood up-the portentous music,Sir Michael Redgrave's melifluous narratiion, the superbly literate script by John Terraine and Correlli ('Bill') Barnett, the archive footage (even if much of it is used out of context)-it was all as I remembered it. This series provided the blueprint for many others, especially 'The World at War'. It is a timeless classic which should be seen by anyone with the remotest interest in history or a moving story superbly told. Interestingly the series was masterminded by John Terraine and, as such, embodies the then unfashionable 'revisionist' view that not all the generals (especially Field Marshal Haig)were blundering idiots who sent men cruelly to their deaths but were limited by the available technology into fighting grim attrition battles as the only means of victory. This now pretty much the academic orthodoxy-40 years after this classic series was made!