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The Netflix homepage describes The American Experiment to potential viewers unwilling to read more than four words as “Sincere. Informative. Documentary series”. Well, my goodness, is it ever that, that and that! The five, hour-plus episodes about the creation of the United States of America to mark its 250th anniversary are as sincere and informative as you could wish. Possibly, at times, too much so.
Ken Burns fans can probably sit this one out. This is not a time for flair and idiosyncrasy. This is a time for self-consciously milestone TV executive produced by Tom Hanks that is so carefully bipartisan, so cognisant of the stains on the country’s history, so balanced in every conceivable way, that it feels like the televisual equivalent of consuming a kale smoothie on a wellness retreat.
By the end of episode two you can feel that The American Experiment is doing you mental and moral good. It must be. You haven’t been bombarded with this many facts and potted histories of famous men nor concentrated so long since you were at school. And if, as at school, you occasionally find yourself numbed by boredom or exhausted – well, that’s the price you have to pay for a respectable education.
We open in 1753, when 13 British colonies strung along the Eastern Seaboard of the New World are beginning to wonder if being ruled from afar by a monarch is all that great. From there, director Brian Knappenberger moves at pace. By the end of the first two episodes we have examined the whys and wherefores of the start of the war of independence, courtesy of a mass of hyperarticulate, impassioned specialists in every figure and fact. We have met a host of characters (whose letters are voiced by actors commensurate with everyone’s dignity, which makes it quite hard to know whether Martin Sheen has been given the honour of being George Washington or the other way round). We have seen copious protest and battle re-enactments (“No taxation without representation!” chants in the former, sounds of musket balls and cries of “Urgh” in the latter). Plus, the global audience has had a chance to find out what some oh-so-familiar names of people, tourist spots and phrases mean (General Dunwoody! Fort Necessity! “The shot heard round the world!” That was the first shot fired at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which sparked the American revolutionary war. Don’t let JFK or Archduke Ferdinand trip you up at the pub quiz).
We have also heard wider commentary on American ideals from some very big names indeed. On the red side, there are Trump’s former VP Mike Pence; Trump’s adversary turned fan, the Republican Texas senator Ted Cruz; and his Kentucky counterpart, Rand “If you think you have a right to healthcare you are saying basically that I am your slave” Paul. Among the blue side are popular-vote winner Hillary Rodham Clinton (as she is billed here), former VP Al Gore, the House speaker Nancy Pelosi and near-president Kamala Harris. If you have noticed that this is four Blue names to three Red, let me assure you that Harris is no more help to the Democratic cause than she ever was. “There is freedom to,” she intones, as if she is vouchsafing new wisdom to us, “and freedom from.” It’s a difficult moment, all right, but not for the reason she thinks. But there is more than enough immaculate anatomising of politics and sociocultural mores elsewhere to make you almost welcome this safe place to land in your brain for a moment.
The five-plus hours never fly by (unless you are a US history stan already, which is smashing but this is designed to chat to the masses not preach to the choir). But as they go on, it does dawn on you – the time given to the horrors and hypocrisies of various chapters in the American annals notwithstanding – that the founding fathers were working in metaphorical and almost literal uncharted territory as they imagined the best a country could be, conjured a constitution out of nothing and built a unity among 13 states out of which would grow an empire. And for most of the last 250 years, the place has generally bent its moral arc towards justice. Bit of a kink in it now, mind. But that’s a five-part series for another day.
