World War II: The Last Heroes

This is a six part documentary covering the period from D-Day to the fall of Berlin, using archive footage, interviews with veterans and expensive re-enactments. WORLD WAR II: THE LAST HEROES is a missed opportunity. The problem, very simply, lies in the way that television is commissioned. This series was made by the same people who made BLITZ STREET and like that series they sold this on the basis of their re-enactments of various period weapons filmed in HD. This is gimmick broadcasting. There are a number of problems. First is the lack of a thesis. The last two decades of scholarship have over-turned a number of hoary old ideas and a programme which took on board the re-assessment of the British-Canadian Army (Ashley-Hart, Copp, Buckley etc.) or which dealt seriously with the Soviets (Glantz) would have been novel and educational. Unfortunately that would have required hiring historians rather than explosives experts. Secondly is the lack of a driving narrative. This is the fault of the writers, who do not understand their subject and have little skill at telling a story. As a result the whole thing drags. Thirdly is dubious use of archive, due to lack of a decent archivist. To give only one of numerous examples, during the episode dealing with Operation Market Garden the v/o talks of British paratroopers but the images show normal infantry. Either nobody spotted that error, nobody understood the difference in uniforms or it was the result of limited archive/budget/time that necessitated the use of inappropriate archive to fill a gap. Fourthly are the interviews. Partly the problem here is age because there are so few veterans left and those that are are very old and consequently facing their mortality which unsurprisingly colours their views. Furthermore many of the interviews were conducted by women (I can't say how I know), who were not interested or experienced in the subject and to whom the soldiers were unlikely to divulge themselves fully. The result is a over- emphasis on emotion over anecdote and an over-reverence towards the veterans that helps nobody. Fifthly are the whole reason for the series, the weapon re-enactments. These are jarringly unrelated to the rest of the programme, provide no real insight and exist only as a gimmick or to liven up trailers. To try to disguise this there are frequent cuts to short shots of explosions from these re-enactments which serve no purpose but to fill up time between the next interview or bit of narrative. The sixth problem is that the v/o is awful, the voice clearly being that of one of the programme makers rather than a professional, which sucks the life out of the script. This is a good example of the problems in historical factual programming today, namely that commissioning is usually predicated on novelty rather than scholarship. Hence decisions made even before the programme was started sank it. Added to is a general lack of knowledge or understanding of the subject, not unusual in a business that relies on small companies who cannot specialise and who have limited time to learn. Furthermore there is the dreadful modern tendency towards a skewed social history that prefers emotion over analysis. Clearly some hard work went into this series but the concept was flawed and the execution was patchy. Like so many series a lack of ambition, knowledge and skill condemns it to be forgotten. Which is sad considering that this probably cost £2-3 million and that a further series on this subject is now unlikely to be made in the next half- decade for fear of repetition.