James Michener was amazing. He wrote huge, sprawling epic novels fronted by inter-generational fictional-family sagas, that were also best-sellers. Whether people bought them to read, or to weigh down fasionable coffee tables to impress their friends, I don't know. I do know they were largely bores because I attempted many of them (a girl I dated--for a very short time--back in the 1980s when I was a history grad student, recommended POLAND. She must have wanted me to dump her).
I enjoyed "Centennial" when it first aired but I was in high school and didn't know much (if that's not redundant). But the mini-series form and I were both young and exciting.
CENTENNIAL the novel started with how the earth's crust formed in Colorado (whoopie) and then Michener had to evolve mankind in that area to have characters. Hey, that sounds like a great idea for a TV show. Filming the novel was probably to cash in (a little tardily) on the bicentennial craze, including the runaway success of John Jakes' Kent Family Chronicles, which aired around the same time.
So how did "Centennial" the show do? Well, they were able to blend in a lot of familiar TV faces and a few rising stars who later made good. I won't fault anyone on their acting chores. They all had a lot to memorize.
The first part, starring Richard Chamberlain and Robert Conrad is, strangely enough, the least enthralling even though it features the lovely Barbara Carrera as the beauty both men love. And though I grew up in a farm community and love farmers and wanted to be one as a kid, the growth of farms in Colorado hardly thrilled me.
However, "Centennial" has much to recommend."
The cat-and-mouse game between Anthony Zerbe, who kills a man, and Brian Keith as the sheriff out to nail him, is lots of fun and excitement.
So is the cattle war, headed by a pre-Bond Timothy Dalton as a cattle baron who could teach "Dallas" some lessons.
Also personally interesting to me was the cattle drive, showing how genuine cowboys worked--the sort of thing I loved about the TV show "Rawhide" until Geller took over and made it about social justice twaddle rather than cattle.
The miniseries also has a modern section with Andy Griffith as a professor doing research in the area, helped along or hindered by the likes of Sharon Gless, Robert Vaughn and David Janssen (who narrates, so you'd better like his voice).
I don't know if Michener did his own research or not. Or if mistakes were made on the script level. But in a few cases myths about the Indians, and relations between tribes, crept in that I didn't notice as a gullible teenager with a burgeoning interest in history that leap out at the now 60-year-old codger who has studied and read deeply in history for decades and already retired from thirty years at a University that shall remain nameless.
But this is a review and not a history lesson. There's much to like in "Centennial."
But whether it's "Centennial" or "The Kent Family Chronicles" Hollywood productions of history always remind me of the old joke, "Yes, but apart from that, how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"
The miniseries was made for entertainment. Don't get your history from Hollywood, whether it's in great movies like "Amadeus" and "Shakespeare in Love," or "Centennial." If you do, you'll remain misinformed.
I enjoyed "Centennial" when it first aired but I was in high school and didn't know much (if that's not redundant). But the mini-series form and I were both young and exciting.
CENTENNIAL the novel started with how the earth's crust formed in Colorado (whoopie) and then Michener had to evolve mankind in that area to have characters. Hey, that sounds like a great idea for a TV show. Filming the novel was probably to cash in (a little tardily) on the bicentennial craze, including the runaway success of John Jakes' Kent Family Chronicles, which aired around the same time.
So how did "Centennial" the show do? Well, they were able to blend in a lot of familiar TV faces and a few rising stars who later made good. I won't fault anyone on their acting chores. They all had a lot to memorize.
The first part, starring Richard Chamberlain and Robert Conrad is, strangely enough, the least enthralling even though it features the lovely Barbara Carrera as the beauty both men love. And though I grew up in a farm community and love farmers and wanted to be one as a kid, the growth of farms in Colorado hardly thrilled me.
However, "Centennial" has much to recommend."
The cat-and-mouse game between Anthony Zerbe, who kills a man, and Brian Keith as the sheriff out to nail him, is lots of fun and excitement.
So is the cattle war, headed by a pre-Bond Timothy Dalton as a cattle baron who could teach "Dallas" some lessons.
Also personally interesting to me was the cattle drive, showing how genuine cowboys worked--the sort of thing I loved about the TV show "Rawhide" until Geller took over and made it about social justice twaddle rather than cattle.
The miniseries also has a modern section with Andy Griffith as a professor doing research in the area, helped along or hindered by the likes of Sharon Gless, Robert Vaughn and David Janssen (who narrates, so you'd better like his voice).
I don't know if Michener did his own research or not. Or if mistakes were made on the script level. But in a few cases myths about the Indians, and relations between tribes, crept in that I didn't notice as a gullible teenager with a burgeoning interest in history that leap out at the now 60-year-old codger who has studied and read deeply in history for decades and already retired from thirty years at a University that shall remain nameless.
But this is a review and not a history lesson. There's much to like in "Centennial."
But whether it's "Centennial" or "The Kent Family Chronicles" Hollywood productions of history always remind me of the old joke, "Yes, but apart from that, how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"
The miniseries was made for entertainment. Don't get your history from Hollywood, whether it's in great movies like "Amadeus" and "Shakespeare in Love," or "Centennial." If you do, you'll remain misinformed.