Strong characters, a dramatic arc, unity of action : The series needed more of this!

I would say that Part 9 of HBO's "The Pacific" is the best of the series by far, to date (Tim Van Patten, dir.). Why? It actually has both dramatic unity and the arc of a story. Virtually all of the other parts, for all their strengths, were literlly all over the map, trying to encompass too many characters doing too many different things, not all of them interesting to watch. The seens outside of the battle lines have been, for the most part, very poorly conceived, with dialogue a half-step above the daytime soaps. Part 9, however, takes place entirely during the battle and siege of Okinawa, and we center on two characters only, Sledge and Snafu - the only two, by the way, that we're truly getting to know over the course of the series. The battle scenes are consistently extraordinary, in this episode and in the others, and we experience almost viscerally the horrors and the fear that the Marines lived with every day, during the terrifying actions and the long inaction holed up in tropical mud. What happens in this part is that Sledge, by the time the invade Okinawa, is consumed with hatred for the Japanese, he mistreats a prisoner, he's on the edge of breakdown. During the battle, he and the very intriguing Snafu come across a destroyed village; they rescue a baby, see the suffering, Sledge is transformed, somewhat. Yes, a bit simplistic, but very well dramatized. The series needed more of this! You have to get to know the characters, watch them change and develop, watch the battlefield shape them. Too many characters come and go (and not just because some of them die in action), too few characters have distinct and defining personalities or characteristics. They experience the war, but we don't experience it through them, in a sense.