Bland and superficial.This drama series looks at World War 1 from the perspective of a few British and German soldiers and civilians - the fighting, the effects on families and relationships, the home front. Covers the entire duration of the war (1914-18).Had the potential to be a WW1 version of Band of Brothers, but falls very far short. Not engaging at all - you don't know much about the characters. Character development is quite superficial. As a result you don't get that feeling of camaraderie that was so essential to Band of Brothers.Plot development - the series just lurches from one scene to another. There is very attempt to link the series to actual historic events or create a sense of historic relevance or accuracy.Not very realistic in its battle scenes either. Certainly nothing like the terrors and mass casualties that actually occurred in the trench warfare of WW1.For a much better, grittier and far more realistic portrayal of WW1 from a soldier's perspective watch the mini-series "ANZACs" (1985) instead.

Overall I found this a bit disappointing and not helped by the time it was shown as it couldn't be more graphic.It tells the story of 2 men from either side fighting in WW1. The acting was very good I thought and the attention to detail was fine. However, I found it difficult to get really involved as it seemed to jump a bit between both sides.The ending was particularly disappointing and I thought contrived with both of the main characters meeting in no mans land while trying to repair damaged barbed wire. The fact that they then end up fighting and killing each other minutes before the war ends was a bit gimmicky and predictable.So overall not the greatest although it did convey how awful it must have been to fight in the war as well as the despair of seeing so many friends die. Spoiled by the contrived and quite predictable ending I thought.

The first person on here to review this, (Mr Mcinsley), got it absolutely right, but I would go further; it's so dumbed down and insipid as to be pointless. This series is supposed to follow the lives of a German and a British soldier during WW1, which I expected to be a moving, gritty and realistic story; how wrong could I be? The main characters are drab and stereotyped, along with the other supporting cast. The battlefield sets look artificial, the uniforms are inexplicably spotless, even the trenches are carefully sculpted. Nothing looks remotely convincing. No one is smoking. Just about every soldier smoked backed then but I don't recall that anyone lights up. No one gets cut, bruised, maimed or blown to pieces. That's what happened - that's what should be made clear to the viewer. The screenplay is laughable. Because it is pre-watershed it's devoid of any believable dialogue or any credible action scenes. It's like some corny censored war film from the 1960's, where anyone who dies gets an instant painless demise, no one swears and all the main characters are such fine and jolly nice young men. Pass the sick bag.A few random samples of what is so wrong with this series. The main British Tommy character, (called Tom just for extra cheese value), at one point is part of a stretcher party, taking two wounded stretcher cases to a field hospital, (where our hero's girlfriend just happens to be stationed, how handy is that?). Everyone is so Clean. The wounded in the stretchers have whiter than white shirts and bandages without a spot of blood or dirt. All of the stretcher party have immaculate uniforms. They look like something from a parade ground. At one point a new recruit starts to itch having only just arrived and is cheerfully informed by our hero that it's merely lice; he hasn't been there five minutes yet his freshly pressed clothing is crawling with vermin. The German hero (Michael) is sent to the Somme to face the British attack. He and his comrades wear Pickelhaube helmets. These were virtually unused by this time in the war. You will not likely find a photo of Germans wearing these at the Somme. They also should have had the regiment numbers in green. They were only red at the very start of the war. They would have definitely had reissued ones with removable spikes which they would have detached by order. These are just a few basic facts that the BBC got wrong. It might seem anal but this is supposed to be a big budget series and it lacks even fundamental research. Tommy also inevitably ends up at the first day of the Somme - now there's a surprise - where he manages to witness the close hand death of each one of his comrades in turn as they cross no man's land. It seems no WW1 drama is complete unless the protagonists go through the Somme carnage. In this case though the carnage is presented as a game of toy soldiers. Tom Tommy survives it all by staggering into a shell hole, where for reasons unknown, he falls asleep. A matter of metres away, his German counterpart hero has also decided to have a snooze after the collapse of the British advance. Once he wakes up he reckons it will be a good idea to climb up onto the parapet of his trench to see what's happened to all those British soldiers he was busy machine gunning earlier. Meanwhile Tom Tommy also decides it would be a great wheeze to climb out if his hiding place and stand up in the middle of no man's land for a look around. At that point I switched off. No one would do that; it really is that simple. It was one ludicrous event too many. Simple is also how I would describe the script writers of this dreadful yarn.I can't imagine what possessed the BBC to make this nonsense. Either make a realistic drama portraying the real suffering and horror the soldiers faced, along with the trauma and tragedy endured by their families and loved ones, or don't bother. It is as well there are no survivors of that conflict left alive to see this as I would imagine they would feel deeply insulted by it. I certainly feel that it's an affront to an adult's intelligence. Truly a lamentable and vapid piece of non drama which snubs the memory of the participants of the First World War. The BBC should be ashamed for such blatant misrepresentation of what our recent ancestors went through.

This is just awful-I appreciate that the time slot will constrain exactly what the film-makers can show, with the gore, the filth, the disease, and the horror all being toned down (although they don't seem to have the same qualms about showing sex), but the production is riddled with inaccuracies and inconsistencies-modern language (the term 'girlfriend' was unknown) and modern accents (I've yet to meet a German who speaks with an Estuarine accent, especially one from rural Germany), a complete glossing-over of both sides' arguments (whether right or wrong) for going to war, apart from a rather trite comment about the Belgians being 'our' friends, no general explanation of the real time situations in which the two volunteers find themselves (this may be a way of illustrating the common soldier's frustration with lack of information, but as a device for stimulating empathy and interest in younger viewers, it fails abysmally), and a maudlin obsession with sugar-coating even the bitterest pill... This is not supposed to be a Barbara Cartland novel, but an interpretation of the brutal realities of early 20th century warfare, and it's effect on its participants.The BBC has concentrated on it's PC agenda, showing the mêlée from both sides, and deliberately avoiding any specific finger-pointing, but in doing so, it has completely obliterated any chance of showing real human emotion and partisanship. Nationalism may be unfashionable today, but it was one of the major motivational factors used by both sides in recruiting to their cause. If this is supposed to be a vaguely factual account of the events from 1914-1918 (and as has been pointed out elsewhere, why does the strap-line talk about "spanning the five years of the First World War"), it shouldn't be prejudiced by modern sensibilities. My forbears fought on both sides of the Great War-this simplistic, dumbed-down soap opera is an insult to all of them. I shall keep watching until the end of the week, if only to see how much worse it can get, and shall append further brickbats as and when necessary-this was yet another waste of licence-payers' money!..