America: The story of us.

I had a real interest in this but I lack cable so I'm hoping it'll pop up online somewhere. I agree about the History Channel producing good stuff when they want. I constantly get sucked into their The Presidents series.

It looks like they got 2 episodes online right now.

Great series! Loving it so far. I just have this weird urge to do my banking with Bank of America.. I just don't know why.

I thought last night was going to be able Lady Liberty. Did I miss something?

Right on! Thanks Bub.

It's ok, but it can be a bit silly at times and I wish it was much more comprehensive. It focuses on some arbitrary subjects, treat other things like bigger deals than they are (dramatic voice: "Cowboys soon faced a new threat...BARBED WIRE!") and kinda brushes over some important issues. Mostly, the tone of the narrator and the familiar cadence annoys me. But it's still a cool subject.

The statue of liberty sequence was kinda neat, but did it really need all that attention and build up? So much time is spent on this that I feel like a whole bunch of other stuff gets brushed over.

Fuck the celebrity cameos. Donald Trump? Come on.

I actually thought it was pretty bad. Maybe I was just tired of having to see the promos during Pawn Stars.

I love that P. Diddy is in this and how he talks about the DNA of Americans.

I love the hell out of Pawn Stars. That place has to be doing double the business now.

I saw the episode about the Western expansion, 90% of which was "Yay America!" and 10% of which was "And we're really sorry about all those Indians."

I don't know. On one level, yes that made the "Cattle Drive" era quite brief, but it is something that radically changed an entire pastoral practice for a continent.

Honestly, I didn't get past the first two episodes.

Some really great CGI effects and period dramatizations but just strange focuses on the history (I think they went with what they could jazz up on screen).

My daughter (8th grader) even started cracking jokes after the first commercials - "Bank of America: did you know we invented water?" "Bank of America: did you know we invented air?" etc. etc. Why is it the real "historians" are left as corporate shills while the progam features the stunning insights of Michael Douglas and Donald Trump? I get the whole pop culture vibe but it just makes the history seem shallow and light.

Also, it's the "story of us" but they manage to leave out pretty much everyone (and no, I'm not calling for some overwhelming mass of minority history studies). For instance, what happened to the South and the French during the Revolution episode? The two - perhaps most important - aspects of the war and they were totally ignored (a brief shoutout to the French and nothing for the Southern theater).

Taken alone each segment is pretty cool and kinda interesting. As a whole, though, it just seemed random and overly commercialized. (And after the 1000th shot of the barnacled underbelly of a fleet I was done with that effect! )

It was pretty funny when they said the Cumberland Gap was created by a meteor. Yes, there's a meteor crater in the area, but it's not like a rock fell from the sky and knocked a hole between two mountains.