History Channel - come on man!!!

I generally love the History Channel.

There's a lot to like. Watching people barter, and price antiques on shows like Pawn Stars, American Pickers, and American Restoration, besides it's entertainment value, allows for spontaneous education. I mean, one can't help but learn SOMETHING from the experts brought in to assess objects ranging from a 1st edition of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea to weapons from the the Colonial, and Civil War eras.

Where the History Channel really drives it home is the dedicated mini-series that focus on particular subjects like Mankind: The Story of All of Us, The Men Who Built America,  and The Ultimate Guide To Presidents all dealt with the subject matter interestingly, and informatively.

Needless to say I was in the early throes of a nerdgasm when History Channel promoted a 3 night miniserries - The World Wars. First off, it was three straight nights, not one night a week over three weeks. Kickass! Teasers promised that it treated the World War I, and II as a singular event, with a promised focus on the Treaty of Versailles and how it's terms contributed to the Second World War, as well as principles in WWII, and their development in WWI, and the interim time.

Well it was a waste. It sucked. Assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Arch Duke started WWI. That's the beginning! No deeper explanations of the web of alliances, and the dominoes that toppled after the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand. That's remedial 8th grade history. Lame!!

Any interesting tidbits? Well, the fucked up Gallipoli invasion was mostly the fault of Churchill. But it was underplayed if that cluster cost him credibility when he was the only one who really thought Hitler was bad news. That's another thing, they kept on the point that only Churchill thought Hitler was a bad guy, like if we had only listened to Churchill. The whole rise of the 3rd Reich is glossed over. 6 hours and they couldn't touch on how deep economic ties in the west were to industrial Germany in the 30s. That's kind of important I think.

What else? Oh yeah - a soldier had Hitler in his gunsight during WWI, but did not pull the trigger. How do we know that's true? It's not like there were big nametags on WWI uniforms. Shit, Hitler - as was customary in the early 20th Century - even still had a giant mustache as opposed to the teeny half-stache that was his hallmark.

The whole 3 nights was just reciting 8th grade remedial history. Hitler bad. Churchill and Roosevelt good. Stalin, kinda bad, then ok, then bad again.

History Channel - come on man.