The Liberator is a four-part miniseries on Netflix with the American infantry officer Felix Sparks as the main character. His story, and that of the 157th Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division, has been written about previously in the similarly titled The Liberator by Alex Kershaw. This "Thunderbird Division" landed on Sicily in July 1943 and fought almost continuously until the end of the war. A story with such an exceptional character as Sparks is, of course, a wonderful starting point for a series.

Before we deal with the content, first something else has to be addressed. The Liberator is an animation series, where it seems as though they have put a filter on real actors at real sets and locations. As a viewer, in the first 15 to 20 minutes I was getting used to how the series looks and was thinking about how it was made. But the series and the story soon got the upper hand, after which I stopped thinking about the details.

Still, the chosen form has its ups and downs. Apparently, the decision to go with animation was made for financial reasons. Otherwise, the series could not have been made, and that would have been a shame. In addition, this choice of animation, along with a unique style, gives the series its own look. But that look may prevent some people from watching it, while others may find it disturbing and will stop watching. The emotions of the actors sometimes are lost because of the animation. For example, if someone is severely injured and being evacuated, the drawn cloud of blood that is in the water is almost laughable. Sometimes it is also hard to see what is taking place due to the animation, yet the soldiers that were actually on the battlefield must have had the same problem, so in that way the series are quite realistic.

The story itself is already remarkable on its own. The troops that Sparks led endured a lot in the Second World War. That alone offers enough content for four episodes, and it is commendable that this series does not follow the trend to make as many episodes and seasons as possible. The acting is good enough to make the characters believable. 

Sparks must have been an extraordinary leader -- someone who knew his men well and fought alongside them, and someone who was greatly admired and respected by them. Bradley James convincingly plays Sparks as honourable, selfless, committed, and brave. There is little to critique regarding the rest of the cast, which is more diverse than what we are used to from movies and series about the Second World War. Sparks’s unit mostly consisted of Native American and Mexican-American men. That was unique during WWII and offers a common thread throughout the series.

Yet, The Liberator is in some ways more of the same. Yes, the 45th Infantry Division was in terms of the backgrounds of the soldiers different than the usual, which brought a lot of tension.

The road that they took and what they endured along the way are very much worth describing. The animation is innovative. But the story becomes partially stuck in what we see in other movies and series, and that is when the cliches are lurking around the corner. Everything points to the fact that Sparks was a special soldier and leader, yet there could have been more focus on his weaknesses as well. The Liberator is worth watching, but it would have been better for the series if it had been thought-provoking a bit more.