Voting Station

Victory at Sea

Please vote to return to collections.

TV Series

The Resume

    (October 26, 1952-May 3, 1953)
    NBC documentary series about WWII concentrating on the war at sea
    Ran for a total of 26 half hour episodes.
    Won the 1954 Emmy for Best Public Affairs show.
    Produced by Henry Salomon, edited by Issac Kleinerman and directed by M Clay Adams
    Stand out episodes include 'Suicide for Glory' and 'The Battle of the Leyte Gulf'

Why Victory at Sea might be annoying:

    Despite its name, it spent a great deal of time examining the ground war.
    Unlike most documentaries it had no interviews in it.
    It used re-enactments/simulations and stock footage without identifying it as such.
    It almost totally ignored the Russian front, spending less than one episode of the whole series on it.
    Only one episode was spent on the first two years of the war (that is before America's entry), no time covering the events leading up to the war or the aftermath, especially the rise of the Iron Curtain/The Warsaw Pact and almost no time was spent on the political intrigue that went on during the war.
    Its original (Saturday afternoon) time slot was a poor one.
    Although women and racial minorities were brought into the U.S. military in large numbers for the first time during WWII, their presence and contributions were almost totally ignored.

Why Victory at Sea might not be annoying:

    It is the best TV documentary series of all time.
    The original soundtrack by Richard Rodgers and Robert Russell Bennett is the best of any TV series of any type of all time and has been a hit as an album/CD.
    Leonard Graves did a superlative job as the narrator.
    There was no politically correct bullshit: America and its allies were the good guys and Germany, Japan, and Italy were the bad guys. Period.
    It had (for its time) a tremendous $500,000 budget.
    It has been a hit in syndication for decades and has done very well in DVD sales.
    The footage in the documentary is consistently amazing.
    The producers did not hesitate to show the horrors of war using footage that still shocks and horrifies.
    Although Graves' narration is rightly lauded, in a very effective technique in many episodes ten to fifteen minutes would lapse between hearing his voice with the images speaking for themselves and only music being heard.

Credit: tom_jeffords


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 3 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 8 Votes: 62.50% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 7 Votes: 28.57% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 9 Votes: 11.11% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 7 Votes: 14.29% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 83 Votes: 49.40% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 18 Votes: 38.89% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 12 Votes: 41.67% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 13 Votes: 30.77% Annoying
    In 2011, Out of 9 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2010, Out of 29 Votes: 37.93% Annoying