It sounds as if I don’t like it. And by all accounts, I shouldn’t. I like my heroes flawed, but essentially decent (even if that decency is well suppressed). But I do. Like it, that is. I don’t necessarily pour over every scene, TiVo it and re-watch it 11 times to get the minutest nuance. (As I am known to do with House). But like I said, maybe it’s the display; the pretty costumes, the gorgeous musical score, or the soap opera-ish way in which it’s all packaged. Sort of like Dallas goes to the Renaissance Faire. It just clicks for me. I only wonder how (if the series goes on another year or two) how they’re going to make Rhys-Meyers look portly!
John Adams, on the other hand, is full of heroes. Patriots, even. But it all moves along at an almost too leisurely pace, especially in contrast to the Tudors. Eschewing some of the more iconic and clichéd scenes of our nation’s birth, it tells the story of Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin through back rooms, and back yards; meeting halls and private conversation.
John Adams is portrayed as a sort of everyman: an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary times. He is contrasted to an intellectual and brooding Thomas Jefferson (British actor Stephen Dillane is perfect in the role), a brilliant and condescending Benjamin Franklin (played another Brit, Tom Wilkinson), and a slow-of-speech, but effective George Washington (David Morse, who I last saw as Javert-like Michael Tritter last year on House. Adams was a lawyer and a farmer, and is portrayed more the latter than the former, and with a bit of an inferiority complex. His wife Abigail (Laura Linney), providing him with both emotional support — and policy advice — is an equal partner (as equal as women could be back then) in this marriage.
Paul Giamatti, an actor of substantial range, plays against type, presenting a frumpy and ill-at-ease man a bit out of his element. But his John Adams is filled with emotion burbling just below the surface. He is self-aware, knowing (maybe all too-knowing) of his shortcomings, but not without his own bit of arrogance (after all, he was President of the United States.)
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