The Eighties

The 1980's was the years that I was growing up so I remember those times so well from the news, TV shows, I watched to the toys I collected to the Ronald Reagan years those times were the best. And with this new CNN series called the "Eighties" it's informative and educational and historical as it highlights the times of the excess and VCR years so well. So far episodes have shown how TV exploded with cable and many shows and so many choices as 24 hour news started and talk shows were at a dozen, plus the world and medical community was shocked with the dawn of the AIDS disease and "The Reagan Years" were filled with high times of the rich and the well to do and it ended with drama and scandal. And the cold war ended and technology took off with computers and wall street rose the markets took off remember "Greed is Good"! Overall another excellent series from CNN that takes you back in time the memories are nonstop you will want to relive life all over again!

This is a great show but of course it could not encapsulate all that was going on at the time. The music change, I feel, was the biggest part, really starting in the late 70's, the bands carried right over to the 80's and exploded. Very big time of social change as was the 60's. They could have stretched it out more and been more indepth but what are you going to do!

The AIDS and other related topics were well done but hard to encompass the feeling that were going on at the time, sex, dating, stretching the limits in many aspects. They could have done more but I guess time and money came into play here.

Like they say, if you didn't live it/experience it then you missed it, as I told my son.

After watching pieces of both the "60s" and "70s" documentaries, and enjoying them both, it made sense to give "The Eighties" a try as well. Though I'm not sure I liked the formula of this documentary quite as much, it still ends up being very informative and entertaining.

Unlike previous iterations, "The Eighties" doesn't just run the decade in chronological order. Instead, each episode focuses on a specific topic, such as...

-Television/Media -Reagan -AIDS -Berlin Wall -Technology -Music -Wall Street

With the exception of the Music & AIDS episodes, which I thought were a bit underwhelming and perhaps not deserving of a whole hour, all the other episodes are quite well done. Like I mentioned previously, it is a bit jarring to have the "story of the 80s" told in little snippets rather than "in order", but I can appreciate what the filmmakers were going for in this case.

One pet peeve about the experience? Perhaps this would have been far too difficult to accomplish, but I wish that the actual 80s footage could have been rendered a bit better (closer to, if not, HD quality). It was very noticeable for the doc to keep switching from the grainy footage to the crystal-clear commentary.

On the whole, though, I enjoyed "The Eighties" and could recommend it to fans of U.S. history in video format. It takes the specific approach instead of the mashup, but in some ways that allows for better focus too.

"The Eighties" maintains the level of quality and interesting topics that "The Seventies" boasted, and even a few surprises. For one, President Reagan. I didn't expect the man to come out gleaming after the AIDS crisis , but the series surprised me with the coverage of his 1980 campaign. That was indeed a glowing assessment. I dunno, maybe I was expecting a more leftist outlook.

Some of the topics were distinctly cynical, and it can be hard to shake off. On the other hand, it was always interesting.

And just as it was with "The Seventies", my real complaint is no coverage of '80s cinema. There's plenty of material from the domination of sci-fi/fantasy to the staggering inflation of budgets to fill an episode. They've apparently green-lit a '90s miniseries, so there's time to rectify this. Although I don't think I want to relive that decade.

Pessimist streak aside, this is worthwhile stuff.

8/10