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This Tom Hanks-narrated companion documentary to Apple TV’s second world war series tells the real-life tale decently – but it lacks spectacle or romanceYou’ve seen the fact-based drama. Do you really need to watch the accompanying documentary as well? Sometimes it’s the other way round, and there’s a documentary that makes a scripted drama on the same subject redundant. Either way, the drama/doc double-up is here to stay, because it makes sense for TV channels to hedge their bets. In the increasingly cash-strapped world of British telly, it can save money: get the same production company to make both shows, and two programmes can share one team of researchers.Counting pennies is probably not, however, the motivation behind The Bloody Hundredth, an hour-long documentary made for Apple TV+ by companies belonging to Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. This is the factual version of Masters of the Air, the same team’s lavish nine-part drama about the 100th Bomb Group, a gang of daring US airmen who helped to win the second world war. Continue reading...