Birdsong

Like everybody else I've been fixated on all the events from 100 years ago, mostly due to Downton Abbey, and now I see PBS is trying to catch lightning in a bottle again with Birdsong. which the Daily News gives the thumbs-up to:

Like “Downton,” “Birdsong” unfolds during the World War I years. Like “Downton,” it revolves around a love story.Beyond that, however, “Birdsong” is its own creature. It shares little else in style, mood or content. 

“Birdsong” takes a far darker view of how the Great War devastated Britain by erasing an entire generation of British men.

While this two-part adaptation carefully balances war scenes with flashbacks to gentler and happier times, it nonetheless presents an unsparing look at a war that was little more than an exercise in execution.

It succeeds in the highest priority of any war film, which is to humanize the men who are slaughtered like cattle and buried by men who very likely will tomorrow be buried themselves.

Since I'm addicted to this shit now of course I'll watch, especially since Downton Abbey didn't REALLY focus on the the war other than having the Earl of Grantham play dress-up while proclaiming "the world is changing!" and teaching us that being at war back then was a strictly Tuesday through Thursday affair for a fellow pretty boy like Matthew, and dipshit Americans like me still don't seem to have a grasp of how destructive the war was.

Well, or the show is about somebody in some pretty sweet nuthuggers. who the fuck knows.