Politics hard to avoid in "Over There"

Over and over, in regard to "Over There," executive producer Steven Bochco has patiently stated that he will not inject opinion about the Iraq war.

But that is absurd. "Over There," which debuts tonight at 10 on FX, cannot help being full of opinion. It starts with the material put in or left out. The content here is both stunning and grating. In its frantic desire to make viewers sit up and pay attention, "Over There" has the least organic feel of any Bochco show in memory — an opera just short of the soap. Yet I know I'll watch to the end.

The show's urgency is understandable and perhaps laudable. FX president John Landgraf, who first had the idea of a weekly wartime series, perceived a growing void in attention to the lives of soldiers in Iraq.

Landgraf recruited Bochco, who in turn brought aboard co-creator and lead writer Chris Gerolmo ("Mississippi Burning"). To begin, they assembled a core group of characters representing the new Army's diversity but identified mainly by the old Army tradition of nicknames.

Among them are Dim (Luke Macfarlane), the smart college guy; Angel (Keith Robinson), the sweet-faced sharpshooter; Tariq (Omid Abtahi), the patriotic Arab American; an earnest young Southerner named Bo (Josh Henderson); and Smoke (Kirk "Sticky" Jones), the angry, streetwise punk literally out of Compton.

There also are women, including a Latina dubbed "Doublewide" (Lizette Carrion) and the rough-tongued "Mrs. B" (Nicki Aycox). Leading the group is Sgt. Scream (Erik Palladino), who establishes his moniker early on.

It's the first tour of duty for all but the sergeant, which we learn the opening few minutes as "Over There" skillfully sets up a quick succession of leave-taking vignettes.. These partings are highly effective and establish the homefront stories that constitute the series' other main element.

They're also more believable than the first big scene — under fire, the troops get acquainted. The dialogue is expository in the goofiest sense, with long-winded sentences that I suspect would be a lot shorter with real ammunition.

As a former soldier who saw the episode noted, platoon members know each other before their first mission. This is one of many times that "Over There" sacrifices accuracy to storytelling convention.

Unfortunately, it's also one of the last occasions that the series takes for small character-building moments. From that point forward, through the three episodes provided for review, "Over There" ratchets up the drama.

That isn't bad; in fact, it's probably what many viewers seek. For all the imbedded reporters and 24-hour cable coverage of the war in Iraq, certain elements have been disappointingly absent: the taste and feel and extrasensory experience of combat.

"Over There" delivers handsomely. Episode One, outside a mosque, conveys the odd mix of tedium and fear that attends sieges. Episode Two is set at a checkpoint where audiences become acquainted with the correlation between confidence in one's judgment and trust in others.

Tariq joins the group and immediately is subjected to the antipathy currently reserved for Arab Americans and, in a past lifetime of war movies, for Japanese Americans and African Americans. He proves his worth by being the hard-ass at checkpoint — rightly so.

Episode Two also is where "Over There" begins creeping into political territory.

The setup, with its surreal sense of menace, calls to mind the soldier gone bonkers in "Apocalypse Now" and firing wildly from his post on the river.

Nothing so drastic happens in "Over There," yet I got the feeling that the writers wanted to communicate chaos and breakdown and an inexplicable absence of discipline.

That suspicion was confirmed in Episode Three. Taking along an Iraqi suspect seized in Episode Two, the platoon arrives in a village seemingly abandoned by everyone except an American officer and a few troops. He promptly orders them to shoot at and immobilize the platoon's Humvee, and then commandeers the hostage.

Soon, he's uttering platitudes about the psychology of interrogation. Colonel Kurtz, anyone? Meantime, the platoon apparently has lost communication with their unit and nervously discusses Abu Ghraib. Next, they're under fire again. An air strike is called.

All this is relentlessly grueling, and quite unlikely from a military standpoint. Then there are the subplots. Bo loses his leg on a beer run, then undergoes morphine withdrawal in a hospital. Dim's slutty wife cheats on him and neglects their son. Bo's long-absent father turns up in an alcoholic stupor. We learn Angel enlisted out of anger.

The implication is that today's military is largely populated by people with emotional problems who joined to escape.

But people with limited options in terms of education or jobs aren't automatically misfits. Although the morass of Iraq has reduced their ranks, some men and women join for the same reasons that others become cops or firefighters.

There's some of that in "Over There." Both Dim and Bo cite 9/11. Still, the series doesn't present nearly enough of the services that troops are attempting to render in Iraq — or, for that matter, enough of the Iraqi people.

Perhaps these elements will emerge. I hope so. The soapy parts of "Over There" put a film on its portrayal, yet it's a worthy and much-needed endeavor.

As to the politics, they're inescapable. An honest depiction of war is hellish; ask any soldier. And it will reverberate with viewers long after the TV set is turned off.

Kay McFadden: kmcfadden@seattletimes.com