We just watched the first season of Masterpiece Theater’s production of “The World on Fire”. Masterpiece Theater remains the best of the best. The list of outstanding shows is long but at the top of my list is “The Jewel in the Crown.” I have watched its 18 hours of the very best of drama three times, once in an all day party. My love of Masterpiece Theater started in 1981 with “Brideshead Revisited.” The only American show that tops them is “The Wire.”
Part of what I like about “The World on Fire” is that the horror and tragedy of war is shown as it impacts individual people and families. While I know that the little old ladies on the street thanking solders for their service have their hearts in the right place, their good wishes to the young men and women to go off and die for our country sickens me. Aside from Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and al-Qaeda’s attack on New York and the Pentagon on 9/11, we have fought our many more recent wars (of choice) in far off places most of you have never been to.
I was never in the military nor fought in any war, but I have worked in many post conflict countries (Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kosovo) and lost colleagues to assassinations while there. We need to understand what war is really like, and the thousands upon thousands of individuals and their families who suffer losses of limbs or lives and property and ways of life for what very often could have and should have been avoided. Why do we encourage Ukraine to fight to the last Ukrainian rather than agree to terms with Russia that could have prevented the invasion in the first place? There are those who profit from these far off wars but many more who suffer greatly. Unfortunately, the former buy more influence than the latter. Movies like “The World on Fire,” can help us better understand the ugly horror of generally unnecessary wars. https://wcoats.blog/2014/06/19/war-bosnia-kosovo-afghanistan-iraq-libya/ https://wcoats.blog/2021/07/05/the-iraq-war/ https://wcoats.blog/2009/09/03/iraq-kidnapping-update/
Warren's space 
Dear Warren, I thought at first you were expressing your adoration for Dolly Parton whom I revere and respect. Then, I realized that you were talking about BBC’s (not very clever and long) production to replace Poldark -which I enjoyed despite its length. I understand your point of the movie focusing on ordinary people and their suffering during the WW II ( a terrible episode of our history…). But what’s new in this 8-hours production, I asked myself. The old ladies thanking the service men? the tragedy we have seen over and over? the terrible price our men paid or the Europeans, Asians paid? Your comments are lofty … but I just don’t get exactly what’s so new about this movie. Frankly, I would have valued a BBC production about Chairman Mao Zedong who sacrificed more than 75 million citizens due to starvation, Joseph Stalin’s 35 million or Hirohito’s 20 million killings including submission of 200,000 South Korean females that were forced to be “comfort women” for the unapoloetic imperial Japanese army. But I do understand the terrible human cost that any and all these insane dictators have caused to the world.
Perhaps there was little new in the lives of this stories main characters (though there was), but the acting and presentation was so well done that it is very worth watching.
Warren, thanks very much for the thoughts. And I agree with Sergio, too. Dick Luthy