I made a topic on the show way back before it even aired. Most serviemen reacted negatively to the series.
I am a film major at Baylor University, Waco Texas, so I come at it from that angle.
From that angle I think it is decent... better than most current-time drama you'll find on TV but it's VERY hit and miss. Some episodes are really gripping, others just fall flat. My main objection to the series is that the writers seem to feel that they need to keep cutting back to the "homefrong sub-plots" to keep audience interest up. As if the main plot in Iraq isn't interesting enough. Either that, or they're worried about keeping the female audiance in the show in order to sell advertising (married females are the #1 demo for advertisers). Either way, I think most of the Iraq plotlines are pretty good... the homefront sub-plots, I feel, have detracted from the series.
As for realism-criticism, I'd say, from my comfy chair in Texas, it does a fairly good job at capitalizing on the un-voiced perspectives. The major media misses MANY MANY perspectives on the conflict and this series picks up on quite a number of them. They had an 'embedded reporter' who made a soldier doing the right thing, look like he had killed a mother and child in cold blood. Another plot had the fireteam in the middle of a culture battle between a weak philosophy of democracy against the strong regional Islamic cleric who cared nothing for a woman's right to speak against him and stoned her to death when the civilian contractor didn't back up his promise to protect her "free speach."
Overall it is interesting, but not great.
For greatness, I much prefer the FOX series "24" for my weekly entertainment.
