Waco: The TV Show (Soon to be a Musical)

Uhhhhh, they were beating children. That was documented by former members.

The Davidians asked for milk for the children. I like the scene where the FBI trades six gallons of milk for a few of the Davidians. They wired tap on the milk containers/crate and picked up Koresh and Schneider drinking the milk themselves.

 

I watched this unfold live on TV.

 

I was in intermediate school (about 2 hours away from Waco). They summoned us all into the cafeteria to watch the carnage live on a big screen tv.

Even in the 6th grade I called b.s. on the need to firebomb a house full of people. A lot of hand-wringing about the "evil" cult to camoflauge a veritable government sanctioned atrocity.

I'd watch the show if I got the channel.

 

So, for real? They're going to compress the other 25 days of the Waco events into a single episode? Well, I suppose they can do a big time jump and it will fit. I mean, on the real tip, I wouldn't expect to watch all 51 days. I don't expect much happened on every single day. Needless to say, I bet next week's finale will be quite the affair.

Episode 5 was again as great as the other episodes. This is a well made series.

I suppose now we see how the FBI negotiator fell flat. He was really angry and sad when he knew there was nothing more that he could do.

This episode further shows how both Koresh and the ATF/FBI were just in a pissing contest. According to the show, Koresh knew they were all going to die at one point. Koresh also admitted to not being able to hear from god anymore.

The only screwy thing about this episode...

Spoiler: Spoiler

Did Koresh really give a concert from the compound's window?

If so, what a kick ass thing to do! If not, what a corny thing for the writers to write in there. It's either cool if it happened, or incredibly dumb if it didn't.

 

not sure about the spoiler thing but the BATF/FBI engaged in psychological warfare in the form of shining bright lights into the compound in the middle of the night as well playing music - i believe one of the songs they were piping in was "These Boots were made for Walking".

 

Obviously I'm trying to avoid spoilers, but my wife read something that while the ATF/FBI were playing their night howls, Koresh was playing recordings of his music right back at them. So, if he didn't play live for the feds, this could have been what the writers were doing for that scene.

 

Episode 6.... just WOW! Excellent mini-series. I think the producers did an excellent job presenting the story. The actors were just phenomenal.

 

i hope they show it again.

 

As far as being a great TV show - a very dramatic one - yes, it was!

The thing that kept running through my head during Ep. 6 was, "Why?"

There were so many moment, of why this, and why that. I mean, why didn't David, if not Steve, get out of there and yell, "Hey, you've blocked the kids up inside!" Koresh could have owned the government after that, or at the very least really gotten his message out. But no, the show portrayed how Koresh was very self-serving. By all accounts it seems like he was, in real life. So, I suppose if you have a self-serving government agency with something to prove, and a self-serving rock star with something to prove, it makes sense that the end results were what they were.

Now to do a little studying on the whole events.

 

This was an excellent mini-series. The drama was riveting and the acting superb. Normally I think Michael Shannon is an overrated actor but his FBI negotiator was a great performance.

 

From what I've read so far, it seems to me that the final disaster boils down to who lit the fires. There is compelling evidence for both sides. I don't think anyone will ever know, although more survivors say that the Branch Davidians lit the fires than not. The problem is, amidst all of the chaos inside the compound, I'm not sure if there is a reliable witness. At best, we get fragments to piece together.

In the show, the faces of the FBI agents don't tell either way, only that there was remorse all around. In the case of the head FBI guy, he realized too late that he made the wrong decision. Moreover, I had no idea that the word came down to make the assault (it was an assault) from the Clinton administration.

Regardless, both Koresh and Schneider died of gunshot wounds to the head. Either that lends to the special kind of not-so-sane, that they no longer cared for their flock, or that they were trapped, themselves, and took the quick way out, rather than roasting alive. I'm not sure there's a definitive answer for that, either. In the show, it displays that Koresh and Schneider were by a window. They could have bailed. Is this a message that Koresh was just plain loony tunes? I need to investigate more. He should have evacuated his folks in the first place. The law would have been a lot easier on him, even though I understand that people can be maniacal about their beliefs, no matter from where they stem. If pushed, their beliefs can become more rigid, as was the case in Waco.

As for the government agencies, I see a lot of fault there, too. It's true that they had collapsed a piece of wall strong enough that it crushed some people to death. It is also true that some of the children died from cyanide poisoning, indicative of long term exposure to tear gas.

According to the FBI, on day 51 they were also taking random bursts of small arms fire from inside the compound. Apparently this was directed at the tanks. They didn't show this in the TV series. There's no telling. The FBI had been caught in some lies, after the events, just as some BD survivors did, too. I noticed in the show that they didn't show the fates of the Branch Davidians who were holed up in the chapel. They had windows, as well. Perhaps they wanted to leave the fate of those members ambiguous, as they might, or might not have fired shots, or set fires, or simply chose to stand pat.

Whatever the case, what a mighty tragedy all the way around. I remember the day, only that I didn't pay much attention. At one point I had walked by the TV earlier in the day and saw small fires in the building. By the time I got home, later that night, the news showed that the place was pretty much burned to the ground.

This could have been handled in so many other ways.

 

I just finished this series. Having read an extensive amount of real information over the years (from both sides) re: The Davidians and Koresh, this series seems to have gotten a lot of things wrong. I'm wondering if that was intentional as the major"consultant" was a Davidian himself? For one thing, they attempt to unfairly demonize the ATF and the FBI who, while they may have badly botched some things, were toyed with and lied to by Koresh. Perhaps the biggest problem with the series is that there is little to no mention of the para-military weaponry (50 mm machine guns, grenades and fully automatic weapons anyone?) and the frequent training exercises (in full combat gear, including children at times) that the Davidians regularly held at their compound. Also, the scene with the children playing happily after their release is entirely incorrect. According to the psychologists who worked with them following their release, the children confirmed and acknowledged that they had been physically and sexually abused. All in all, for my money, this was a blatant attempt to whitewash Koresh and his band of brainwashed followers. I strongly urge anyone who thinks that this version of the story is accurate to do some reading on the subject. The truth is out there.

 

Which books or documents would you recommend?

 

Here's a very interesting and fairly recent article from CBS news:
"I've kept my story secret for the last 25 years -- I didn't want to take this to my grave"

 

After watching a few documentaries, I found a ton of very suspect things that Koresh said to the FBI negotiators. If they would have showed those parts, it would have been a very different mini-series.

That said, I do believe fault was on both sides of the fray. It was a tragic event.

Personally, I think the evidence leads to the government agencies setting fire to the place. It looks as if they also deployed snipers covering escape routes.

We'll never really know, though. That's probably for the best.

It was a captivating show, nonetheless.

 

i'm of the same mind. and it's very upsetting.

i do realize there are at least two sides of the story to these type events. and it's doubtful that we'll ever know the whole truth.

 

I just got back from the cemetery where a lot of the Branch Davidians are buried. Wayne Martin, a bunch of Koresh's children, the Martinez family, Perry Jones and his family. So many. So sad what people can do to one another. I think I'm over my whole Waco experience. I've traveled back in time and have come back.