if you want to measure how much television production and mass entertainment have regress over 20 year you should check war and remembrance and compare it with trash air on television and theater right now . character straight from herman wouk original novel be dramatic and have feeling and fear and struggle and personal agony and accomplishment and failure . they be real as much a they can be in fact too real in stark horrific reality of wartime . we see two family henry and wastrows and people around them live and struggle and try to survive and move on in these extraordinary condition of great war mankind ever make . meanwhile we witness main event and personality of war and battle and diplomatic event etc . and yes best produce holocaust scene ever make in television . horror of what nazi have do to jew and slav and gypsy and communist and other undesirable minority be sample and bring to screen with dramatic acting and intense detailed production value . i fact same high production value standard be in entire miniseries itself . from cold bitter merciless concrentation camp to wartime america and from occupy france to germany to naval battle at sea everything have an authentic look of 1940es . it be very informative in historical sense . although character be depict like in novel not all character be well write ( both in novel and in miniseries ) romance story of captain pug henry with pamela tudsburry who be half his age be very unconvincing and compare with stark brutality of what jastrows endure at hand of nazi it be just pointless and trivial . same thing can be say for polly bergen character and rhode henry and pug drunk wife and her relationship and manner in comfortable u . instead they could give u some more battle scene and other stuff about war and contribitions of character . fortunetely rest of cast and character writing be very very good . jane symour and john gielgund be just awesome a aaron and natalie jastrow and jew who be try to survive in nazi occupy europe . hart borchner be also give a good performance a u submarine officer byron henry who be try to reach his wife natalie and his child trap in europe . victoria tenant and robert morley be not bad either . rest of cast and support character be also show very admirable performance . stefan berkoff a adolf hitler be quite entertaining to watch for example .