Pathetic; aimed for complete morons?

I wouldn't be too hard on the series. I'm a U.S. History professor and wasn't expecting earth-shattering, in-depth analysis of the Wars from the miniseries. I am enjoying the re-enactments and the CGI.

The channel is designed to raise interest in history. (Sadly, it falls way short most of the time with just bad history and/or reality shows.) A show like this does a decent job. And while I have some problems with some smaller historical inaccuracies, the rest of it is designed to have broad appeal to the average American (who unfortunately have a 2nd grade level understanding of a lot of historical topics.)

In terms of this being dumbed-down, I find it to be on par with most of the history channels documentaries of the past decade. They are entertaining and a good entry level, for the most part, for people. It's what happens when you cram almost 30 years of history into 6 hours (minus commercials.)

I only have major issues with the History Channel when they do revisionist history to promote an agenda. So far, that hasn't been an issue in "The World Wars". "America: The Story of Us" and "The Men Who Built America" suffered tremendously from revisionist history for agenda purposes.

Biggest problems I have seen thus far was a scene in Episode 1, where Patton stated he was a Lieutenant to BGen MacArthur in the trenches. However, it appeared Patton was wearing Lt. Col. rank on his uniform.

Also, MacArthur was shown wearing the 5-star General of the Armies rank when it covered his tenure as Chief of Staff of the Army under Roosevelt. He didn't have the 5-star rank until 1944.

It's a bit glaring yes, and I'm wondering how History Channel could of allowed a lapse like that happen.

However, the rest of the series has been good thus far. I can see what they are trying to do with this, which is to make all of this interesting to most who don't know the intricate details of how these men came to power.

Also....I could of sworn that the footage of German transport planes in Episode 2 were taken from the film "Valkyrie", but I could be wrong.

Yes, and thank you for watching, Arthur!

(that was too easy, sorry!)

"I. Drink. Your. Milkshake! [slurp!] I DRINK IT UP!" - Daniel Plainview - "There Will Be Blood"

I can make room for the fact that it's a bit difficult to squeeze 31 years of history into 6 hours of film, including commercials. My criticism is that these total war programs always seem to focus more on the European theatre, whereas imo, the men in the Pacific had it far worse battling not just the Japanese, but the heat, lack of water, jungle, diseases, mosquitoes, snakes, etc.

I wish something could have been told about the sacrifices made back home like rationed gasoline, sugar, coffee, butter, no tires to be bought, to name a few. I'm not convinced today's generation would quietly go without, to supply the boys "over there."

Lastly, I could certainly have done without Rumsfeld and Cheney. How many deferments did he get? Five? They don't deserve to shine the shoes of the greatest generation survivors. Next showing, edit them out.

The emphasis on Patton in the final episode - with zero mention of George Marshall or Dwight Eisenhower and making it seem as though Patton was Hitler's primary concern (yes, I'm aware of the dummy invasion scheme that Patton was a part of), among other things - was downright laughable. Also zero mention (that I saw) of Lend Lease, which was incredibly important.

I was ok with a lot of the dumbed down presentation that this gave, but the Patton part was over the top for me.

This may as well have been Professor X (Roosevelt), Captain America (Patton), and Ironman (MacArthur) verses the Red Skull (Hitler), for the way it was presented.

Laughable.

I am not even an hour into the first show, and this is really troubling. The casual historical errors are perhaps excusable for the sake of the story (a poison gas attack in October 1914 on the Western Front, long before Second Ypres or Churchill being relieved as First Lord of the Admiralty by a man in uniform (looked like an Army uniform at that) - think general firing the Secretary of Defense).

Where it gets bad is Lenin attacking the Winter Palace to overthrow the Tsar. Really? Kerensky and the Provisional Government written out of history. Next we have Lenin signng a decree immediately ending the war on the Eastern Front? What happened to Trotsky's "No War, No Peace"

The Russian Revolution is a significant geopolitical fact and a lot that happened flowed from that. They may not have had time to explain it, fine. However, that does not excuse actually putting up a story that anyone with a basis knowledge of 20th century European history knows is wrong, such as having Lenin overthrow the Tsar. I can't wait to see what happens next.

I recall reading somewhere years ago thar Hitler trimmed his mustache to fit under a gas mask during WWI. Doesn't explain the other errors of course.