Pretty good, but ...

It's reminiscent of a much better and longer French series called The Village, which was about the second world war. This is about the first, but there are plenty of similarities, such as both starting at the opening days of hostilities for a small French town in the Vosges. There is also a shared lead actress.

This one follows the lives of four women and their struggles. It feels historical, has a large and talented task and plenty of outdoor shooting. A great thing is that they start us in the middle of all their stories. When we meet them they all have considerable backstories that we can speculate about, but do not fully come out for some time. Even when they have done, new characters with similar complicated backstories show up as well.

On the other hand, sometimes the writing takes the story too far. They just have to amp up the drama to the nth degree by creating entirely unrealistic situations. The evildoers are just too evil, too clever and too much in cahoots to be possible in real life.

And what's the deal with endless scenes of characters running from room to room or from place to place in the forest. Some director must really love shooting that kind of scene, but there are too many of them. It starts to become a very noticeable cheap trick to make things seem more exciting.

There are some historical gaffes as well. Poison gas is being introduced earlier than it was historically and President Poincare appears to have powers he did not have in real life. Things like that.

Overall a pretty good series, especially in the first five episodes. After that it becomes more questionable, but probably worth finishing the full 8.