Just started watching the documentary "Dogfights" and the first one I saw was about the Thunderbolt against the FW-190. I must say that I have to agree with the majority of the other reviews that based on the one program I have seen it is totally biased towards the American pilots and planes. The Americans who did take part in the war certainly sacrificed a lot and deserve all the praise they get. It's unfortunately some of the so called historians and documentaries that put it all out of whack with their inability to see beyond their nose. Besides that I have never understood why some film companies have to scale down the picture size when recounting something in the past. In this documentary the actual black and white pictures were framed by some sort of background. It does nothing to enhance the viewing experience and is a bit of an irritation. The worst part of the program and which was a real disappointed was the pilot who tried to describe the dogfight while flying. The noise of the engine just made the whole thing worse. Well this is one series that I am not going to watch.

Although the series is high in technical proficiency and detail to re-animate air battles, there is an almost complete of historical balance. The focus of most chapters is on American aviators as if they were repeating the "Mariana's turkey shot" through the ages. Only a few chapters are devoted to Israeli or German and Japanese odds-and-ends (Me-163, kamikaze, etc.). Almost no mention is done of German, Russian, Japanese, Chinese and even North Vietnamese Aces that top all-time aerial combat Aces lists. They even neglect traditional allies as the British and the French. There are very detailed accounts of aerial battles from the "other guys" point of view that should be included to have a really "Historical balance" of aerial warfare.

Over 90% of all episodes are of American victories. The rest are 'our side', whether Israelis, in admittedly the same one-sided accounts, defeating many times their number of foes, or the RAF who are represented as having to use an American rather than British pilot in a British-Canadian Squadron portrayed shooting down more unarmed planes than warplanes. The series seems to forget that the definition of a dogfight is the aerial combat between fighter planes. Seriously, in 3 seasons not a single mention of "The Battle of Britain"(admittedly the most important series of dogfights to western freedom), the Spitfire nor a British even Canadian star. There is not a single episode where an enemy fighter pilot is the star shooting down an American fighter pilot in a dogfight. That's not 'a little biased', that's 'totally biased'. That's not a 'historical documentary', that's 'propaganda'. Even non-Americans have risked and given their lives for the American ideals of 'Truth and Justice for all', but this series has none of that. I've collected such documentary series in book, tape now DVD form for over 40 years. This is the first one I'll refuse to include.

Dogfights is about the famous dogfights of World I to today. The show is based on a two-hour special that aired in late 2005. The show has chronicled the dogfights from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. The most recent one was called Death of the Bismarck. It was about the British pilots who'd sunk the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941. There were also episodes about MiG Alley and Operation Bolo. The best episode was about the F6F Hellcat and the Japanese Zero. Another one was about the Flying Tigers. In some episodes, the actual veterans themselves, talk about their experiences. The animation is like a video game. There was an episode about the F-8 Crusader which was the last gunfighter. The F-8 was involved in a dogfight that lasted ten minutes. The longest dogfight in Vietnam. Operation Bolo was a successful attempt to lure the elusive MiG-21a into combat. The show has all the elements of a video game and this show is great.