John Adams, HBO’s seven part, $100 million miniseries, is more than ambitious. In scope and depth, it is the most far-reaching production ever made on the American Revolution, though given its predecessors—the offensively silly musical 1776 and Mel Gibson’s The Patriot—this isn’t saying much. Director Tom Hooper (Elizabeth I) and screenwriter Kirk Ellis obviously understood that Americans will not pay to see a feature film about the birth of their own country in large numbers; they conceived the material (taken from David McCullough’s 700+ page biography) for television, eschewing all the things—action scenes, sex, flamboyant dialogue—that movies are made of.

Each frame of John Adams demonstrates what television, particularly cable television, can do for history. John Adams takes its time and lights up its characters from the inside, then allows history to take its course. Simply put, their series is character driven, not plot driven.

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