Band Of Brothers

Band of Brothers follows Easy Company through training and the war in Europe. Its achievement is making the scale of that experience understandable through the men sharing it: the uncertainty before an operation, the exhaustion afterwards and the importance of trusting the person beside you.

The combat is forceful, but the quieter decisions distinguish the series. Leadership means noticing what frightened, tired men can actually do, not merely delivering an impressive speech. Damian Lewis's Richard Winters gives that idea a persuasive centre while the ensemble allows attention to move beyond one commanding figure.

The veteran interviews add a separate weight. These are dramatised events, yet the presence of men who lived through the war stops the action becoming an abstract display of bravery. The series can be difficult viewing without treating suffering as spectacle.

It remains a compelling place to begin with long-form war drama. The Pacific approaches a different theatre through a harsher, more fragmented experience; Masters of the Air moves the danger into bomber crews. Neither makes this account of a company moving through Europe redundant.