Amph What was the last tv episode you watched?

Band of Brothers- "The Last Patrol"

An earlier episode dealt with replacement troops joining Easy Company, but now one of them is someone who served with the company up to Normandy but was injured and missed out on Bastogne. Now back with the company he's basically treated like a stranger, his fellow soldiers extra hardened from the past few months of fighting. It's a sad portrait of the effect war has on soldiers toiling away on the battlefield, and likely foreshadowing of how they'll interact with their fellow Americans when they return home. Colin Hanks also shows up as a lieutenant fresh out of West Point who's also treated with disrespect, but also shows he's up to the task to help out on a quick but dangerous mission.

 

Adventures of Robin Hood - Trial By Combat

Another Season 1 episode of the Richard Greene series, and another one focusing on Robin Hood.

I’m definitely thinking that Season 1 looks to be more competently written than the other seasons (which again backs up my memory of old library VHS tapes of the series.) There’s a bit more drama, ambition, and creativity at this stage of the show, as well as some genuine darkness - all the sort of stuff that speaks of a somewhat “younger” writing room and producers less likely to think the show’s main purpose is entertaining bored children alone. To use a Western TV Shows comparison, early AORH is closer to watching Gunsmoke at this stage, while the latter bits of the show are closer to Cheyenne or one of those other really boring and forgettable shows.

Here, the plot has the sort of premise that other Robin Hood media could really use and remix - Maid Marian gets framed for murdering a royal accountant by the actual killer, a knight so blunt and brutish he offends the normal antagonist the Sheriff of Nottingham even though the two are co-conspirators in trying to avoid having their bookkeeping investigated, and Marian has to call for trial by combat (title drop!) to avoid the hangman/headsman (more on that in a bit.) Robin, wounded earlier and not quite recovered, has to arrive in the nick of time in disguise to beat the knight and save her, and his reward is everyone holding him down while Maid Marian merrily pours barley broth down his throat to help him get better.

(…Which makes it the second time a wounded 1950s Robin Hood had a flirty but trolling Maid Marin force feeds him broth, since the same thing happens in Disney’s Story of Robin Hood movie. Weird, but cute.)

Since the story involves an actual murder and isn’t afraid to explicitly threaten Marian with public execution, there’s a bit darker and meatier tone to the adventure than the later seasons - in particular, in a nice bit of old school black and white filmmaking where the shadow of the executioner and his axe is used to silently remind the audience of the peril… even though all previous references had been to a hangman, not a headsman, and even though it requires him to pose awkwardly with the axe for no good reason.

The resolution is brief and predictable - Richard Greene’s Robin shows up with a fake beard and wig that seemingly no one can see through, has a decent but very-50’s-TV fight with the knight, and beats him before collapsing. It’s great for the era, though, and if someone ever remade this episode, there’s a lot of little stuff they could have used to make it even spicier - like the irony of this more physically capable Marian still not being allowed to fight on her own behalf in the trial, or how the Sheriff could have a nice bit of realizing Robin’s there, but disliking the knight enough as a loose cannon to let the fight commence anyways.

 

Band of Brothers- "Why We Fight"

Even though I knew this one was coming, I was still hit hard by the imagery in the latter half of the episode. In fact it's one of the few episode that's stuck with me years after originally watching it, 'cause it's pretty hard to forget such an in-depth portrayal of the horrors of the Holocaust. And what a way to frame it too, with some members of Easy Company starting to chafe at being at war for so long, becoming disillusioned with their purpose and feeling more and more bitter towards the Germans for starting the war and their superiors for making them fight in such a long and taxing conflict. That is, until they learn what was truly at stake if the Nazis had been successful in conquering Europe or even the whole world. Their discovery of a concentration camp is as much a gut punch to the viewer as it had to have been for them, with the show holding nothing back depicting just how terribly the imprisoned Jews had been treated. Indeed I just had to sit for a while once the credits started rolling, especially when I remind myself that this really happened- these plucky heroes were real people that really stumbled upon a concentration camp with zero idea such a thing existed. Why we fight? This is why.

 

Band of Brothers- "Points"

Well it was fun journey, but here I am at the end of Easy Company's story. What a rollercoaster of emotions it all was, but every episode was great to utterly amazing. The finale was no exception with a big focus on the war winding down, with however still several hardships some of the men endure. The points in the title refer to the accumulated points every soldier has, which if they have enough they can return to America, since they can't all just go because there's still battles raging in the Pacific Theater. After all the hell they've been through it's easy to understand how some of them are getting antsy waiting around twiddling their thumbs because they don't quite have the points to go home, and it gets extra sad when a few men die in accidents before they even get the chance. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel when Japan finally surrenders and these brothers are rewarded with their final reprieves.

One of the more unique parts of this show was opening each episode with interviews with the then present day survivors of Easy Company, so after following these "characters" for ten episodes we finally get to find out who is who, so we wouldn't have been spoiled before. It's a highly poignant ending to the series and just about the best thing they could have done to honor the memory of all those brave soldiers, and it left me a blubbering mess so points for that.

 

It absolutely jumps the shark. But it does reset its footing so do stick with it.