HBO has given the greenlight to Generation Kill, a seven-hour miniseries based on the true stories of Marines fighting in the Iraq war. The series will focus on the early movements of the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion. The series is being co-written by David Simon and Ed Burns of The Wire and is based on Evan Wright's nonfiction book of the same name. Wright was embedded with U.S. troops during the war's first phase in 2003.

Expect to see nothing but Iraq war films, miniseries and television shows coming out of Hollywood over the next couple of years. Enough time has passed since the war's inception to see all manner of first person narratives and analysis published and snapped up by production companies. What distinguishes Generation Kill is its look at the war's earliest days, the specificity with which it addresses military bueracracy and its characterization of today's soliders. They are not their WWII and Vietnam counterparts. As Wright described them, Marines are "on more intimate terms with videogames, reality TV shows and Internet porn than they are with their own parents." Different generation. Different war.

Welcome to the mid-2000's, CW Network! You've finally figured out that people don't just watch your shows on that big glowing tube (or LCD or plasma screen) in the middle of the living room!

That's what I thought when I read that the CW has decided to make its shows available for sale on iTunes. According to today's Cynopsis, the network will make episodes of Supernatural and Veronica Mars available. The network is also working on an embedded video player, which will play full episodes, including commercials, on the network's web site.

VM and Supernatural seem like the most natural choices to be made available online, given their fanbases. What I wonder is: given the relatively tiny audiences for CW shows, why didn't they jump on the online bandwagon sooner? As others have seen, it's a great way to get a little-seen show out to more people.