A Ken Burns documentary has a certain look. A master documentary filmmaker, Burns definitely has a style that engages mass audiences and makes history fascinating and welcoming for all. But, sometimes, we want a closer look at something than Burns can give us.

Enter your local public television station. When MPTV airs Burns' mini-series, "The War," it will also show its own 30-minute addendum, "Stories from the Homefront: The War in Wisconsin."

If not as slick as a Burns film -- and please, can we a less somnambulic narrator?! -- "Stories from the Homefront" is hyperlocal television, sharing the stories the women who stayed behind to keep families together but also to show the world what they could really do in Milwaukee factories, foundries and shops.

The 30-minute high-definition program also explains how black labor was affected by the war and discusses Wisconsin's POW camps and the 20,000 enemy soldiers housed in them. Perhaps most interesting are the interviews with two German soldiers who first came to Wisconsin as POW camp inmates. Returning to Germany after the war, they were drawn back to the state to live and work and they're still here today.

Through his mini-series Ken Burns will present a broad view of World War II to PBS viewers, but "Stories from the Homefront" will tell you what was happening on National Avenue and all around Milwaukee and Wisconsin.

"Stories from the Homefront" airs Friday, Sept. 21 at 9 and 11:30 p.m. and Monday, Sept. 24 at 11 p.m. on channel 10. You can get a free, sneak preview of it at Wisconsin's Black Historical Society, 2620 W. Center St., on Wednesday, Sept. 12, from 5 to 8 p.m. Call (414) 271-1036 for free tickets.

"The War" is a seven-part, 14-hour miniseries that airs nightly at 7 p.m., Sept. 23-26 and Sept. 26-Oct. 2 on channel 10.