Mrs. Amanda Reviews THE PACIFIC (Episode 5, "Peleliu Landing")

As you may recall, I wasn't too thrilled with the early episodes of The Pacific.  We're now halfway through the miniseries, and so I thought I'd give an update on all of my innermost feelings.

Nope, still don't like it.

But at least this latest episode was better than the last four sucks because it involved actual war (at least for part of it).  According to IMDB, here is what happened:

Basiloneʼs celebrity grows as he travels across the country on the war bonds tour. On Pavuvu, Sledge, assigned to the 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division, is briefly reunited with Phillips and Leckie rejoins his company. Sledge then gets his first taste of combat as he, Leckie, and the rest of the 1st Marine Division meet fierce Japanese resistance while landing on the intricately and heavily defended coral island of Peleliu.

My sister clued me into the fact that Joseph Mazzello was also in Jurassic Park - where, unlike The Pacific, I actually cared if he survived.

Here are my current problems with the show:

• You can tell a show is a stinker when it has a two-minute title sequence.  That's not that long, you say?  Think of your favorite show...how long is the title?  Fifteen seconds?  This intolerably long title is preceded by a recap of the previous show.  It's a miniseries.  I'm pretty sure no one is flipping through the channels and randomly decides to give Episode Five a try.  All a long title and hours of recaps tell me is that your content isn't good enough to fill up actual show time.
• They actually show a guy selling war bonds.  I wish I could say this was a joke.  Listen, I understand that selling war bonds was an important part of the war.  But I'm sure cleaning the latrines was also part of it, and they don't make that a central storyline.  Why?  Because.it's.boring.as.crap.  You can have Basilone (Jon Seda) screw as many girls as he can get his dick into, and it's still not going to make it interesting.
• I truly dislike both of the main characters: Leckie (James Badge Dale) and Sledge (Joseph Mazzello).  Leckie's big moment in the last ep was, after Sledge asks what he believes in (if not God), Leckie replies, "I believe in ammunition."  Picture the biggest douchebag you know - couldn't you picture that dickface line coming out of his mouth?  I honestly can't believe that they have now had 2 episodes surrounding this character.  At what point will he finally puss out and go home?
• Speaking of pussies, the Commanding Officer actually had to go back for Sledge multiple times on Peleliu because he was in a fetal position on the beach.  Basilone is selling war bonds and this mama's boy is fighting a war?  No wonder Peleliu took so long.
• They shipped off the only character I liked - Phillips (Ashton Holmes).  Fortunately (and this was one of the only bright spots so far), they brought on an interesting character played by Rami Malek.  Knowing The Pacific, though, they'll kill him off in the next episode and I'll be back to staring at Leckie's open mouth.

I dunno, I guess I'm going to stick with it to the end to see if I ever actually give a shit...or to see if the big surprise finish is that Leckie marries the chick that he's been writing to since the beginning (PS: I'm sure he does because he's just that big of a fuck.  I bet he also pictures that Australian girl while he's porking his wife) and Sledge's balls finally drop and he is able to make it through an actual battle without pissing himself.  I'll let you know.