>>64383958

>oh yeah also Sharpe (and basically any other media covering the same era) represents linear warfare and the period in general about as authentically as Monty Python and the Holy Grail does the middle ages

I think that's a bit mean. You have to give the Sharpe TV series at least some allowances for being produced on a 1980s-1990s ITV budget. I don't think Yanks appreciate just how little money there is in British television, even more so back then - never mind a shoestring, it's not even a single fibre. For an example, I recommend that you look up a late-70s spy TV series "The Sandbaggers" (it's easy to find on YouTube). It's a great show, but it's so hilariously cheap that they try and pass off the side of a quarry as the Rock of Gibraltar and in an episode featuring an aeroplane hijacking they literally show a plastic model of the plane - they couldn't even afford to take a trip to the local airport and film some B-roll on the tarmac.

Anyway, ITV did their best with what they had, but you're really expecting too much if you want every episode to be on the same scale as Sergei Bondarchuck's Waterloo. When all you can afford is one busload of re-enactors for the weekend, you make do.