A series at war with itself - The Pacific

The weather's warmer, the windows are open, and I hope we're not freaking out the neighbors because we've been watching "The Pacific" and I have a pretty good speaker system and there aren't too many TV shows louder than this one. The Pacific seems to be about experiencing the war from the soldier's point of view - you're right in there among the incredible machine-gun attacks, the aerial bombardments, the grenades - you can almost smell the gunpowder. The house shakes. If that's what you want, The Pacific is all right. But is it really a good series? Two episodes in, I've yet to be won over and am having my doubts. The characters (we follow 5 guys as the enter the Marines, but we know almost nothing about their backgrounds and they're kind of hard to tell apart, at least in the early going) just don't come alive, the dialogue is simplistic, and the episodes seem to fall into a pattern: every time a couple of Marines are sitting around gabbing, get ready because an attack's coming! Moreover, we learn nothing about the geopolitical forces of the war (we are strictly held to the Marine's point of view), and though they occasionally talk about battle strategy - Col. Puller gives attack orders - there's no way you can follow the battlefield movements (first two episodes are about Guadalcanal). Again, the series is honest in its intentions - we're just like one of the Marines, mystified by the greater forces around us - but for that to work the characters have to be much stronger. Compare with the HBO series on the invasion of Iraq to see how this can work. And, ugh, the swelling soundtrack, Hanks and Spielberg sentimentality and trumped-up patriotism, totally breaks the mood of grim realism - the series is at war with itself.