Never let it be said that I shy away from the tough shows. Sure, it's all very well to roll around in the muck (Tommy Lee, The Cut, Canadian Idol) but it's a big bad world out there and there are big questions to be asked. For which you need a big producer. Someone like, say, Steven Bochco. And a series like Over There, which debuted in Canada on History Television last night.

I don't know what I expected. A lot, I guess. The hype was pretty intense. It's uncompromising! Unflinching! Accurate! It's the only TV series about a war... while that war is still happening! It doesn't take sides!

Is it uncompromising and unflinching? I translate that as 'graphically shows limbs being blown off'. And yep, we got some of that. It's a drama which follows seven squad members during their tour in Iraq. Come on. There are - unfortunately - going to be limbs.

Accurate? Well, that's debatable. And, in fact, has been debated at length. I'm not so worried about that one. Hell, we can't even get accurate news most of the time.

The fact that it's screening while the Iraq War drags on... hmm, okay. I'm not sure how this is a recommendation. Maybe it's more of a talking point. Maybe it means we can experience real-time television empathy for American soldiers, by entering into a fabricated Hollywood experience. Because let's face it - frontline journalism doesn't let you get to know the characters properly. That, and the camera angles get all screwed up.

It's the last claim that irks me, the one about sides. Sure, red and blue viewers see what they want: the right grumbles that the show's anti-war because the soldiers aren't treated sympathetically enough, the left whines that the show's pro-war because it plays like an army recruitment commercial. Bochco has stated that the show is neutral - it doesn't take sides. But it does. The cameras sit behind American lines and document American stories.

That seems like a side to me.

Hang on, you're saying. Now you're being a silly billy! We were talking about right versus left, not American versus Iraqi. True. But it sure is distracting, all this left/right debate. Kinda makes you forget who you're fighting. Over There might put a human face on conflict - but whose face?

If there's one thing that war stories perpetuate, it's that forged brotherhood of us, versus the incomprehensible mass of them. Humanising the enemy is usually left to emotionally manipulative moments near the end, when soldiers meditate on the futility of battle, and how we're not that different after all. Cue soundtrack. There's never a sense of just who the enemy is. How they live. What they're fighting for. The babies they've left at home, the wives they want to see again. Could you tell that story and not take sides? Over There and There? You know, I think you could come close. Seriously.