Sunday, April 20, 2008

Some thoughts that noone cares about on the John Adams miniseries that no SUS readers care about



The 7 part miniseries ended last night. Some thoughts.

-Parts of it I loved, parts of it I liked, and parts of it bored the hell out of me. The second episode involving the early meetings of the Continental Congress was far and away the best episode. The episodes when Adams is in Europe sucked. The interactions with Jefferson were fantastic, while the interactions with Washington made me think less of GW as a president. (Or maybe less of the Disturbia dude as an actor.) The 7th and final episode, between the daughter's breast cancer, the death of Abigail Adams and SPOILER ALERT the death of Adams himself was amazingly depressing. Basically, after the first two episodes, I got my hopes up, and it failed to deliver. Overall, it was an uneven miniseries, and average at best by HBO's standards. That said, HBO's standards are high enough that this was still better than anything you could hope for on real tv.

As for some more inconsequential musings:

-Each episode, Adams managed to get slightly more ugly, and his teeth withered away that much more. I didn't think he could get any uglier after last episode. And then this episode came in on us, and Adams grew exponentially more hideous with each passing minute. By the end, he was basically a science fiction character.

-So I'm going to assume that most (or both) of the people reading this article saw Go. The hot chick in that who wasn't Katie Holmes, Ronna, was John Adams daughter. As fate would have it, I've wanted to see her boobies for years now, ever since Go was released. What is that, 9 years ago? The good news: we finally get boobie action in this final episode. The bad news: it's as she's having surgery to remove breast cancer. And there was no anasthesia back then. Karma, you motherfucker.

-Very few people enjoy a good Sally Hemmings joke as much as I do. Needless to say, when we finally got a glimpse of her, with 5 minutes left in the miniseries, I don't think I've been this happy since Eli to Tyree.

-This is going to get me into trouble when I go back to Jersey, but man, this final episode did not make growing old seem fun. For that matter, it sure as hell didn't make being a child of one who is growing old much fun either. You grow bitter, you can barely walk, you need someone to take care of you, and every time someone takes a nap, there's a 50/50 chance that they're not waking up. That Pete Townshend fella was onto something with his whole "I hope I die before I grow old" gimmick.

-In related news, Pete Townshend will be 63 next month.

-A quick view of what history, or at least David McCulloch thought of some of the important historic figures:
George Washington-socially awkward like a 13 year old boy
Thomas Jefferson-socially awkward like a 13 year old boy, only if the 13 year old could write like a combination of Shakespeare and MLK. Probably the finest man to come from the Revolution.
John Adams-great ideas. Complete asshole.
Alexander Hamilton-asshole who wanted an empire.
Ben Franklin-Loved the ladies. An eccentric genius.
John Quincy Adams-The Michael Jackson to John Adams' Joe Jackson. Not a happy childhood.
The South Carolina Delegation-Forget Barney Frank. These were the first homosexuals in Congress. I'm too lazy to find any photos, but you gotta trust me here.
The delegates from the great state of New Jersey-amazingly inconsequential to anything. (This was the first thing my dad noticed from the 2nd episode. This may have stopped him from watching any further.)

-Emmy possibilities: Giamatti and Laura Linney will be front runners. And they'll be somewhat deserved, especially Linney's. But a supporting Emmy (MissMet, does this award even exist?) should go to Thomas Jefferson. The man stole every scene he was in. And if George Washington gets nominated for anything, then the Emmys is officially the Milli Vanilli of awards shows.

3 comments:

The Brooklyn Hillbilly said...

fuck you, GW was an OG

MissMet said...

There definitely is a Supporting Actor Emmy for a miniseries, but I believe it is combined with tv movie. Either way, he was pretty awesome. I still have to watch parts 6 and 7, but I'll get on that soon, as we are getting rid of our satellite and going back to cable. I have to watch everything in my DVR before Monday. The clock has started ticking...

Maureen Cawley said...

i need to netflix this