Just watched the series opener; I thought it was excellent and that the review was off base.

The shortest way I can put it is to say that "too depressing" is weak and irrelevant criticism, and if "good liberals" are supposed to layer themselves in tempered sophistication, then who wants to be a "good liberal"?

Killing and war are inherently interesting situations, and whether or not the crude masculinity of men in that situation depresses you, this show had a great story with the historical situation, group dynamics, and realistic and flawed human characters. The Iraq war had a lot less straight up combat than other wars of comparable length so the focus is of course going to be different this time.

A lot of things in this review could be said about Blood Meridian; that doesn't mean it's not one of the greatest books of its time.