![the long road home the long road home](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/6PD51pm2Jwr8tQcFmPpt9Xs1obW.jpg)
It’s situated in one character’s point of view, to be sure - but mostly on the page. This, ultimately, is where “The Choice” - a genuinely engaging episode of National Geographic’s Iraq War-set miniseries The Long Road Home, a fictional account of a true story - falls short of greatness. When creators are just trying to get through an episode as quickly as possible, most scenes will be shot from a dry, omniscient point of view - observing the events, but relying heavily on the script for emotional commentary and catharsis. There are obvious exceptions, but it’s telling that many of them (from The Sopranos to Girls to The Leftovers to Westworld) are on HBO, which often allows its episodes around double (and sometimes triple) the amount of shooting time compared to other networks. This takes time and purposeful direction, something that TV doesn’t always have room for when it comes to crafting episodes. This doesn’t mean, say, shooting everything like a particular character would see it (though that can work in some cases), but rather finding ways to shoot scenes to convey the proper emotional experience of those scenes, whether that’s something a particular character is feeling or something a whole group of characters is feeling.
![the long road home the long road home](https://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_250/MI0000/672/MI0000672821.jpg)
There are more obvious ways to pull this off - voiceover narration being the most overused - but a great director can situate you in point of view through careful shot selection and composition.
#THE LONG ROAD HOME HOW TO#
In the best films, there’s real thought put into how to convey the perspective from which the story is being told, whether that’s a singular character’s point of view or a larger ensemble. The thing that most separates film as a medium from TV as a medium isn’t size or spectacle or even typical viewing situation. The episode of the week for November 26 through December 2 is “The Choice,” the fifth episode of Nat Geo’s miniseries The Long Road Home. Every Sunday, we pick a new episode of the week.