The Adams Chronicles

I bought my copy back in 2009 or 2010 I would say; 4 DVD's, from amazon; recently made it to Quincy, the first 3 disks are very interesting and were obviously a back-bone and were reviewed for the HBO Adam's mini-series; many things are factually different when we first watched, the Adam's Chronicles is more accurate depiction of John and JQA. the later un-explored years of the Adam's family is unique, to my knowledge no other documentary exists beyond the lives of the original John and John Quincy Adams.

In our BiCentennial year of 1976, PBS produced this fine series, not just limited to founder John Adams, but for four generations of the Adams family which can rightfully be called our first American political dynasty. The Adams family and not Charles Addams's characters are revisited every so often by historians and recently David McCullough got many honors for his new biography of redoubtable John Adams.

It's been a long time (30 years) since one of the best mini-series on American History has been seen, not to mention a bit difficult to remember the details. The Chronicles, produced for WNET/PBS New York for the 200 year Centennial Celebration is sitting in the station's vault.

I've also seen "The Adams Chronicles" in the mid-1970s when I was a College Student. I've skimmed through the published Adams Papers, witch lots of letters between Abigail and John Adams, and the series has captured the flavor of the Adams, with their love and intellectual exchanges with each other.

For those of us who fondly remember the bicentennial celebrations that took place in 1976, will probably also remember watching the 13 episodes of Adams Chronicles.They followed the British miniseries format by using actors who had done stage work, lavish costumes, studio sets and exterior shots at locations that fit the scene.

This Mini is by far one of the best to be produced by PBS. Its success was helped largely in part by the fact that it came out during the bicentennial year, but even had that not been the case it still would have done well.

I am old enough to have seen this when it was originally presented on PBS. I also grew up in the shadows of Boston where most the mini series takes place.

I saw the series when first televised on PBS (in the days before affordable VCR's) To my knowledge it has been televised one or twice since and I missed a few episodes each time. I really wish PBS would televise it again or at least offer it for sale.