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I'm commenting on the PBS series, The War, as it airs. I've watched three episodes and decided not to buy the series. I won't even watch another episode. I was Tivoing the episodes, so I watched them in quick succession. This helped me notice the following problems with the series. Footage. I submit that there are thousands of hours of WWII film stock available. However, by the third episode, I realized I was watching a lot of the same footage. Minorities. Yes, the U.S. was racist during WWII. Mr. Burns goes to great lengths to make sure you understand just how racist. I noticed that every 30 minute segment has some reference to how minorities were ill-treated: notably Japanese and African Americans. With this, Burns was chastised for not illustrating the role of Hispanics in the War, so he added 30 minutes to the first episode to rectify. This is noticeably last minute. While I agree discussion of these issues is relevant, over-emphasis is not necessary. Repeated Segment. In the first and third episode, a woman from Delaware explains how she met her husband in NYC. I managed to annoy my wife by quoting her the second time. A little quality control would have caught this. By the third episode, I was throughly in deja vu mode. Padding. This series spends a lot of time reading letters from "Babe." As I said last night, "we get it. It was tough over there, but he sent home cheerly letters." There are other letters that do little to add to the series but are read to us. This seems to be Mr. Burns trying to capture some of the Civil War series feel but ends up just adding padding to the series. I would submit that at least one hour was wasted. The Good. What the series did manage to do was express some of what happened in the U.S. The explosion of industry, the rationing, and other aspects of the civilian effort was illuminating. However, these nuggets of information are buried in a mountain of padding that detracts from its value.