Reasons why The Long Road Home is worth-watching
Here are great reasons why The
Long Road Home, National Geographic’s ambitious series that brings to Technicolor cutting-edge life the harrowing yet inspiring events of April 2004, should be your next TV addiction.
It’s based on a painstakingly researched true story. Based on the New
York Times best-selling book by internationally acclaimed journalist Martha Raddatz, The Long Road Home — A Story
of War and Family is about Black Sunday in April 2004. Currently ABC News chief Global Affairs correspondent, Raddatz book was praised by The Washington Post as “a masterpiece of literary non-fiction that rivals any war-related classic that has preceded it.”
Black Sunday would change the way the American military saw Iraq from a simple peacekeeping mission to a fight against domestic insurgents. Soldiers from the US 1st Cavalry Division of Fort Hood, Texas were ambushed in Sadr City, Baghdad, with eight making the ultimate sacrifice that day and over 65 seriously wounded.
It shines a light on the heroes behind the scenes. With The Long
Road Home…(we’re) going to shine a light on the sisterhood formed by their wives on the home front as they (rallied) around each other awaiting news of their husbands’ fates,” says National Geographic channel EVP and head of global scripted programming and development Carolyn Bernstein.
The staff behind the series is a powerhouse in itself, with screenwriter, showrunner, and executive producer Mikko Alanne adapting the book’s events for TV. Direction is provided by Emmy winners Phil Abraham and Mikael Salomon, and the series’ executive producers are Mike Medavoy, Mikko Alanne, Jason Clark, Benjamin Anderson and Edward McGurn.
The feels you’ll get are going to be too real. Book author Martha, according to the New York Times, went back “…and painstakingly reconstructed the event from every conceivable angle — including the thing that he said/she said reactions of soldiers in Iraq and their wives in Fort Hood, Texas. Some of those wives would receive the most dreaded kinds of visitors after the battle. Not since the Vietnam War did the First Cavalry suffer so many casualties in one day.”
Much care has been taken to reconstruct the events as closely as they happened. Talk about bringing you there: In addition to consulting the author herself for the show’s production, NatGeo brought in two US Army veterans who survived the ambush: Eric Bourquin and Aaron Fowler.
The series stars Michael Kelly (House of Cards, Taboo); Jason Ritter (Parenthood, Girls); E.J. Bonilla (Unforgettable); Kate Bosworth (Superman Returns, Blue Crush, SSGB, The Art of More); Sarah Wayne Callies (Prison Break, The Walking Dead, Colony); Noel Fisher (Shameless); Jeremy Sisto (Suburgatory, Law & Order, Six Feet Under); Jon Beavers (NCIS, Gotham, The Fresh Beat Band); and Darius Homayoun (Tyrant), among many others.
The Long Road Home airs Wednesday nights at 10 and Sunday nights at 10 for the weekend primetime replay.