Last night PBS aired the first episode of Ken Burns’s new documentary: The Vietnam War. I’ve been looking forward to this series for several years. As I’ve said many times before, no Republican likes the films of Ken Burns more than I do.

Obviously Ken is taking on a challenging subject with Vietnam. Spoiler alert: the Vietnam war is controversial. There are people around today with very strong feelings about the war on both sides. It’s not as though there are many people around today pushing Prohibition or keeping Jackie Robinson out of baseball, subjects of Ken’s more recent works. Vietnam though? It’s going to be tough to keep bias out of this one.

Minutes into the film we see it’s not just a historic retelling. I don’t think there’s any question we’re going to look like the bad guys through much of the film. Interestingly, too, Ken’s approach this time around is a bit different as well. He’s taken to interspersing “current” clips (from the ’60s) with the historical info and the iconic “Ken Burns effect” style of filmmaking. The period covered in Episode One is 1858-1961 (mostly a history of French settlement and subjugation), though again there are cuts to action from the late ’60s, the period one usually imagines with any mention of the war.

This was the first war Americans saw every night on television.

And 50 years later, we get to see it again. Every night this week. Check your local listings.