Plan B Forum

History and A&E will be broadcasting a remake of Roots beginning May 30 for four nights

That looks great! I'll definitely watch - finally going to have television starting this weekend, WOOT!

I am sure my memory will fail me here, and any number of posters will point this out, but Rich Man Poor Man was the first of the big mini-series and made Nick Nolte a star (he beat up tough guy middle linebacker, Dick Butkus, among other unlikely events). And then along came Roots, which crushed it, with the amazing story of Kunta Kinte transforming into a Star Fleet officer (jk), and all the other great story telling of the African-American story. There must be a review of how this impacted the quality of the stuff that came across the airwaves, because it was definitely grades above the pablum we were getting.

I think that the success of those two certainly gave the networks the confidence to make the genre a regular feature of television, much of which was good and some of which was schlock (just how many Danielle Steele or Judith Krantz novels can be turned into miniseries before they all start looking the same). But it also changed the nature of TV drama generally - successful miniseries proved that serial storylines could hold an audience's attention, and so we started to get stuff like Hill Street Blues and Dallas and St. Elsewhere, until today most of the quality TV drama is serialized. Which probably made the miniseries a victim of its own success.

Good comparison, LR. Both excellent fictional miniseries, though only one pretended not to be.

"Roots" is a fascinating entertainment phenom. Proved to be bullshit history and plagiarized at that.

I'm surprised that History and A&E were willing to take air time away from their Swamp People and Duck Dynasty marathons for something like this...

It will probably be more entertaining than the many dog-chasing-tail talking heads with silly 'but what if the ancient Egyptians had faster-than-light travel?' questions, that seems to be the main pre-occupation of the History channel. It will be at least as informative as the tv coverage of the presidential election.

snailgate

scooter--it's a while ago, but how many good miniseries can you remember? These two kicked it off, but I honestly can't think of that many other even decent miniseries. Then again I usually try to avoid the soap opera style shows (which these two were as well) even among the current series (but it is getting harder and harder each year), so I may have missed many.

ETA: I can think of only one miniseries I enjoyed (other than on public television, but I see those as different from what I think we're referring to), Band of Brothers. I saw it on commercial TV, but it might have been HBO or Showtime first.

FWIW, I would probably distinguish premium TV channels like HBO (and download services like Netflix) from commercial TV as they are not subject to the same restrictions of censorship; these shows can include nudity, violence, and much more adult themes than their commercial broadcast TV counterparts can, which make them very different (commercial TV often takes the best cuts of beef and turns them into hamburger). Compare, for example, The Tudors with the series Reign on the WB, to see what I mean. I would be interested in knowing any commercial broadcast TV miniseries which have been good.

Scooter made a good point that tv shows that have story arcs over multiple episodes reduced the need for the mini-series. But that said, the recent success of Fargo is more mini-series than tv show.

Of true mini-series, Lonesome Dove was the best I saw. Winds of War was pretty well done too. Later, Band of Brothers was excellent. Then, the "king" of the mini-series, Richard Chamberlain did Shogun (pretty good) and The Thorn Birds (didn't watch it) and maybe a couple of others.

I honestly can't think of that many other even decent miniseries.

One my favorite early mini-series was one that isn't that well known: Chiefs

Storyline

This series tells the story of a southern town's police chiefs and the serial murderer who confounds them. Will Henry Lee is the first chief, an easygoing man who works to establish the position while the murderer begins his havoc. The second is a violent racist who stumbles about his job as the murderer continues his. Tyler Watts is the final chief in the story, an African-American cop who must deal with the virulent racism of his community while he puts together the pieces to finally bring the murderer to justice.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084997/



An interesting blend of following several generations of social evolution combined with a suspense thriller...Superbly cast....

I liked all of those and would add the sequels to some of them - Roots: The Next Generations, Rich Man, Poor Man Book II, War and Remembrance. I like historical drama, so adaptations of novels like Centennial, North and South, The Bastard, The Blue and the Grey. Backstairs at the White House is another one that would probably never have been made but for the success of Roots. Religious-themed stuff like Jesus of Nazareth, Moses the Lawgiver, Masada. Holocaust, which hugely increased the public's awareness of the extent and brutality of that event. East of Eden.

I had forgotten about some of these...

The series before War and Remembrance...The Winds Of War, was also really well made...Robert Mitchum didn't do a lot of television...

And Michael Moriarty was absolutely chilling in Holocaust...

A couple of more I liked were Kane and Abel, (with Sam Neill and Peter Strauss) and Shogun, with Richard Chamberlain...

Some of the best mini-series have been on PBS's Masterpiece; Brideshead Revisited, et al.

I, Clavdivs

The Six Wives of Henry VIII

Elizabeth R (not quite as good as SWH8)

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Smiley's People

Pride and Prejudice (BBC)

Sense and Sensibility (BBC)

Hinterland

Gormenghast (brilliant!)

House of Cards (the real one)

I admit to liking Six Wives of Henry VIII, but that premiered well before Roots (I think 1970--and so far as I know was first on Independent broadcast Stations, not PBS or any network).

Private Schulz, The Flame Trees Of Thika, Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years...

A question to the people who posted miniseries--which were broadcast network, which were PBS/BBC, and which were premium cable channel (HBO, Showtime, etc.) or series produced for downloads? As I said before, each is different, and I do think the premium cable/downloads and PBS/BBC miniseries belong in different categories. I've seen a couple of broadcast network miniseries (or at least the first episode), and IMHO they played more like Lifetime movies (I think the networks knew their audience), but I was interested in finding out what the best broadcast miniseries were.

All the one's I've posted, (except for the last post; those are early PBS/BBC) are broadcast network mini-seires from the late seventies to mid-eighties...

I believe that's also true of the ones Scooter posted...

Yes, all of mine also. I purposely didn't include anything from PBS, HBO, etc. because the discussion was about mainstream commercial television.