Jenni, well, this episode was about one of the biggest operations on the Western Front. I expected a lot of shooting, action and battle scenes. Instead of this I gained a boring story about medic guy.
I remember a moment when Germans began to attack ("c'mon, show me some action!") and what do you think? Of course they don't show an attack, they just send medic guy to the town (suppose they run out of budget, lol). Also this episode showed hard climate and supply conditions for American soldiers. Sorry guys but after some movies about WWII winter warfare of Eastern Front this episode looks... hmm... strange.
I say again - BoB is really cool but I think it's overestimated a bit.
That is a scenario were I would call it a cop out, (to preserve budget in a tell-instead-of-show way almost always feels like a cop out) but I think that the episode did it to show the medics POV. He knows a big battle is going on and that people-his friends, might get wounded or killed, but he has to leave for the hospital. It covers a lot of the anticipation and mental stress that he is going through. The best scene to show this is when a patrol is sent out to scout and he isn't allowed to participate because he is a medic.
You see him squatting in the woods leaning towards a tree and hearing the firefight in the distance and just waiting for the moment which he probably knows will come, he knows someone will get grievously injured and that he will be the one with the power to save that person. I think scenes like that combined with the actors skills shows these emotions and how he psychologically is changing to adapt.
I think it's a episode that shows little but tell you a lot, so I can totally see that if you didn't get into it (not meaning that in an insulting way) and weren't able to relate to Doc Roe (who the episode relies on) or if you just didn't find his personality and mentality compelling I can see if the episode is pretty damn boring.
I guess you like the episode before (or maybe it was after?) that follows the sergeant/lieutenant? The artillery in that episode is some of the scariest shit I've ever seen, still.