The plan for 'Band of Brothers'

"Alright, I want mortars and grenade launchers on that building till it's gone. When it's gone I want 1st to go straight in. Forget going around. Everybody else, follow me."

If you know the context of that quote from "Band of Brothers," then you should be psyched when I start reviewing the miniseries next week. And if not, then you have much to discover and enjoy. A quick explanation of how it's going to work coming up just as soon as I find some Vat 69...

After everybody pledged to read and comment, I sat down and thought about how I was going to do this, given several factors: 1)For the people without the DVDs, the episodes are only up On Demand until June 8, 2)I've been watching the episodes while exercising and therefore haven't taken notes, 3)I have all my thoughts on the episodes rattling around in my head now and want to get to discussing it already, and 4)Even though it's summer, my schedule is already pretty swamped as it is with summer shows, plus "The Wire" and "Sports Night," plus the usual Star-Ledger obligations.

So here's the deal: on Monday, I'm going to post some thoughts on "Curahee," and then I'm going to keep doing these write-ups as quickly as I can over the next few weeks, whenever I have some free time in my day to do so. These won't be remotely as long or as detail-oriented as the "Wire" reviews, nor will I be recapping the plots like I did with "Freaks and Geeks." Just whatever thoughts I happen to have on each episode, followed by an opportunity for you to discuss it. (And if you don't hold up your end, you'll get the Sobel treatment.) In an ideal world where I had unlimited free time, I'd do this more in-depth for posterity's sake, but this is what I can do now.

Also, while I do these separate newbie/veteran versions of the "Wire" reviews, in the interest of keeping things simple here, it's gonna be one version per episode. I'll be as vague as I can about what's coming, but I can't not discuss anything that's to come, and I imagine you guys -- most of whom seem to have seen the miniseries already -- will have a difficult time as well. We'll do our best to not include major spoilers, like that time Guarnere kidnapped Ava Braun... ooops. Shouldn't have said that. But if I say something like, "This episode sets up Hubler's interest in finding a Luger, which will be a running element," or "this guy now doesn't appear for a few episodes," I think that's fair game, under the circumstances.

So, see you on Monday for this one.