I'm just judging from the first episode, "Call to Duty," which covers such subjects as the building of the USS Enterprise and the beginning of World War II in the Pacific, up Doolittle's raid on Japan early in 1942.
I doubt that the remaining episodes will be much different in their presentation, but I intend to watch them because some of the incidents, all seen from the perspective of the ship, are given short shrift in other documentaries. After all, how often do you hear about a raid on Kwajalein by Enterprise's torpedo bombers and dive bombers? It wasn't glamorous, the damage was not strategic, and it was over with quickly and without drama. And there is no combat footage of the raid. Here, it's given fairly extensive treatment -- about five minutes' worth.
Structurally, it blends CGIs, newsreel footage, and several talking heads, including some participants. It's a healthy mixture. Of course, choices had to be made and the overall picture of the Pacific war is neglected in favor of the career of the Enterprise. The newsreel footage doesn't always match the events being described. A description of Pearl Harbor after the Japanese attack is accompanied by color film of the battle for Midway. But that's niggling. The CGI's are impressive, given the period and the budget. And the viewer will learn some details about the ships and airplanes, as well as what it feels like to pull out of a seventy-degree dive at one thousand feet.
What almost ruins an otherwise fine documentary are the editing and the tone of the narration. Maybe the director and the editor were on mushrooms. I don't think a single shot lacks camera motion or lasts longer than two seconds. The camera zig zags, and sometimes the image switches rapidly from positive to negative and back again. Often one irrelevant image (say, a compass) is superimposed on footage of men loading a gun. Except for the computer's reconstructions, every frame seems to be speckled with drifting snow.
It's not just distracting, and it's not just irritating. It's insulting. The ultimate effect is that of a child's video game with constant action, and loud bangs on the sound track, or maybe a TV commercial for a male enhancement product.
The narration, although largely accurate in its historical aspects, is likewise aimed at high schoolers, or so it seems. "The pilots now had a chance to indulge their taste for revenge". "They slammed into the zeros." One expects that from a war-time flag waver but not from a serious treatment of a serious subject sixty or seventy years after the fact. I can't wait for the last episode when our football team tears down the opponent's goal posts.
The "Battlefield" series, also available on YouTube, has its own weaknesses but it's not offensive. A larger question is, if the media increasingly treat the audience like impatient ten-year olds, how should the viewers be expected to respond?