Well, shoot.

The next four episodes of Island at War, though very good, seem to err in the Desperate Hausfraus direction.

Sleeping with the enemy, of course, is a dramatic staple.  It’s the very stuff of espionage films and there can’t be anything more poignant than losing in battle and knowing the enemy has taken your women, but, without giving away endings, this all just sort of sits there, unresolved.   The kindly young German officer admits there is nothing any individual can do to change the ugliness of history, and so the best solace you can take lies in stealing small moments of love where they can be found — apparently while you go on serving the Nazis.

We’re left, literally, just looking at the ocean.   In other words, the same existential apathy that left the Island without a response to danger, leaves it bobbing along like a cork in a storm drain.

Okay, so the production is flawed.  It still has small moments of moral courage, and outrageously beautiful visuals.

On the larger issues,  a good friend of mine gave me the scoop on a new film coming out this Christmas that he just saw at an industry pre-screening.   He called it “awful” three different times.   We concluded that great directors can’t just be technically competent. They have to believe in something — and it can’t just be pop culture rituals.  Remember all the baseball films of a few years back?    I like sitting in the stands and dragging on a beer and hearing the crack of the bat and singing the national anthem and all that, but baseball, by itself, is not a religion.  It’s not God.  It’s not even spiritual.   It’s just a pleasant folk tradition.    When you elevate pop icons like John Lennon to sainthood, it’s downright embarrassing, and when directors go rooting around for some great idea to hang their story on — baseball, the environment, or puppy-love — they usually fail.

You need a big idea.   Eternal life, for example.