There's 'Over There' -- and there's the real thing.

Of course, to some extent, my first thought was that this series -- OVER THERE -- WAS the 'real thing,' as in 'Hey, Monkey Boy and Dick Cheney don't mind walking on fresh graves to make some money for their friends ... certainly Cameron didn't mind dancing on the bones of the Titanic dead for some loot, so why wouldn't Steven Bochco join the parade of making a profit from putting party hats on the bodies of the freshly dead?

"There is a strong sense that people in the States don't understand soldiers, don't understand what's going on in Iraq, they just don't get it. "Over There" was supposed to help solve that problem. To a certain extent, it does."

Hey -- does that mean multi-multi-multi-millionaire Bochco is doing this as a public service and all his personal profits will go to this war's maimed, psyche-fucked, and families of the dead who are getting royally screwed by the govt, who are being denied VA benefits, and who are being juked out of their pensions. A surviving widow gets $12K death benefit? And Bochco gets, oh how much, for re-enacting the improv'd mine that blew Daddy to bits?

Or does Bochco's concern for the men and women who are being pushed into the grinder only go as a far as ratings and residuals?

If you were REALLY doing what you say you're doing, Stevie Boy, you'd be going out-of-pocket to run interviews with every man, woman, and basket case returning from the field of battle giving us a (NON-ACTOR'S) face to the human cost and each one telling us what he or she actually thinks in his or her own words.

It would be ... hmm, what could you possibly call it -- how about REALITY PROGRAMMING?

Why hire a bunch of kids who know fuck-all about committment to others in dire situations to portray idealized versions when you've got REAL soldiers and Marines and National Guardsmen and Reservists right there -- out of work, out of money, and shit out of luck, while you roll down the windows of your limo and tell the world how it REALLY is over there.

If you're so able to time out a show to the perfect number of minutes and seconds, how come you can't seem to recognize when YOU'RE FINISHED?

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