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Generation Kill packs a punch

Confronting, brutal, bursting with testosterone, this series from the writers on The Wire is now airing on ABC2.

Somehow I never managed to catch Generation Kill when it aired on Pay TV, but from tonight it airs on ABC2.

This 2008 HBO miniseries on the US invasion of Iraq surely packs a punch.

It is based on Evan Wright’s book, who was an embedded reporter with the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion‎ of the United States Marines. Here he is played by Lee Tergesen, who will be recognisable to many largely thanks to Oz and Desperate Housewives. True Blood‘s Alexander Skaarsgard also appears.

It was The Wire‘s David Simons and Ed Burns who co-created the 7 part series.

Shot in Namibia, Mozambique and South Africa, this is about as real as you will get for a TV drama on the Iraq war.

It is confronting, brutal, bursting with testosterone, and as they say, there is money on the screen. The episodes are quite long too, 69 minutes, but playing on ABC2 you won’t be interrupted.

It starts tonight at 9:30pm rated M. Highly recommended.

13 Responses

  1. ‘True Blood‘s Alexander Skaarsgard also appears’

    Alexander Skaarsgard makes this series. It was after seeing this that I started watching True Blood.

    Excellent series that has a healthy mix of serious and comedic moments.

  2. @Joe – I haven’t confirmed this but I understand that Foxtel still have the broadcast rights to S5. When that expires the ABC will be able to purchase and broadcast it.

  3. Great show! And stay thru the credits to listen to the radio chatter, it’s different each episode.

    Such a shame it’s taken so long to make it to FTA and even then on a secondary channel with pretty much no advertising. Very sad…

  4. I watched CNNNN on 7mate so missed the first half of the show but didn’t think much of it.

    Does anyone know why the ABC still refuses to show season 5 of The Wire? They’re repeating seasons 1-4 again on ABC 2 but I was hoping I’d get to see the final series of the show.

  5. Secret Squïrrel,

    That’s a good point you make about Norton & music rights – hadn’t thought of that. It’s a shame then content can’t be sold to overseas networks as a broadcast/online package. Although, I heard the UK is a bit different when it comes to broadcasters paying for (or not?) featured music. Either way, for example, iView should be treated the same as ABC2 when selling content to them.

  6. @Stan – I thought it prob would be but wasn’t sure. I think the Norton issue is related to having to pay for additional rights for any music featured.

    One of the many good things about living in the west is that I can see that “Gen. Kill” is already up on iView, so I can watch it before “Dexter”.

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