I would do dark magic for a Band of Brothers-style show about a Soviet military unit. Start out pre Barbossa, show life in the Stalin era - then have like three episodes of defeat as everyone retreats east. Halfway through the show is Stalingrad, and the first victory won by the protagonists - then you see all the same locations from the first half of the show but in reverse, learn about the horrors the Germans visited upon the captured populations, liberate a concentration camp, reach Berlin, V-E day and an episode where everyone thinks they're going to get sent to Manchukuo but then they don't.