In a previous post, we shared with you blogger Kate Shellnutt’s list of the most realistic war movies and series, drawn up with the assistance of very reliable “analysts” – her father, a Navy SEAL, and her boyfriend, an Army soldier. Shellnutt ended her post by saying that they were looking forward to the new HBO series “The Pacific,” which is also created by the team that brought to the screen the epic Band of Brothers – Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.

After the team retraced the Allied forces’ steps though Europe, the duo now look to that other stage that saw the ravages of the Second World War – “The Pacific.” And for their efforts, TV critic Paige Wiser awarded them a medal of honor.

Here are some highlights taken from Wiser’s review on The Beacon News. Right off the bat, Wiser gave the series a very positive description: “majestic”.

In a nutshell, the entire series follows the steps of the men of the 1st Marine Division, men who were, so to speak, “conquering the unknown”: Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. In the middle of everything are three characters whose stories bind the entire 10-part epic together: Robert Leckie, who signed up after Pearl Harbor and served as a machine-gunner and an intelligence scout; Eugene “Sledgehammer” Sledge, described by Wiser as “overprivileged, cursed with a heart murmur and too impatient to finish officers’ training school; and John Basilone, one of two surviviors in a 15-man unit in Guadalcanal who was hung over when he learned he’d earned a Medal of Honor.

If there’s anything that could be deduced out of Wiser’s piece, it’s that the characters, their portrayals and the arena that they gave their performances in was believable – an honest and realistic peek into the events that shaped our present. It’s two thumbs up for Spielberg and Hanks!