American Genius

This Scientist A vs. Scientist B "documentary" plays upon personal contests to hold the audience, since viewers surely will lack the curiosity sufficient to gut through the many ad breaks and aggravating recaps. "Mothra vs. Godzilla", this ain't! Anyone with the slightest knowledge of history will have difficulty enjoying this version of it. The footage is poorly chosen, mostly from History Channel reenactments, I think. There are World War II GI's packing M-16s in the Space Race episode. The filming on "period" sets deserves some credit, but you can see the "museum" signs here and there. There is an 1840s map of the British-American contested Oregon Country is in the background of the 1880s "Austrian" factory office in "Edison vs. Tesla"! Sloppy is a charitable call on this poor effort.

The episode leaves the viewer with the impression that Farnsworth only had a single patent relating to TV when in fact he had over 100 patents issued in years before WW][. Also I take issue with the scenes of the so-called labs where Farnsworth ( & Sarnoff's crew ) worked didn't really look like working labs at all and featured actors handing vacuum tubes as if they were objects of great curiosity, however there was no evidence of anybody slaving over a hot soldering iron to actually assemble anything. I guess I should cut them a bit of slack, they producers of this bit wanted to feature the DRAMA & the technology obviously took a back-seat.

Twenty or thirty repetitions per episode of the same set of footage loops? 30% of the presentation is in slow motion? Historically inaccurate? Lightweight skim over of the main events with major omissions? Overly dramatic voice-over complete with soaring musical score more appropriate to a Steven Spielberg weepy?, Repeating the same information after every ad break as if your audience have attention deficit disorder? Yep, you got it! Its a new 'documentary' series from The National Geographic Channel (or to be fair, The History Channel, The Discovery Channel or any number of other purveyors of this lightweight rubbish) This pure filler style of producing a commercial hour of television reminds me that CNN used to produce news and was a really good thing when it started. These channels I have mentioned are now in CNN territory in that they USED to be a good thing but now are ripe for someone else to come along and do it properly. Come on Ken Burns, the world needs KBC (The Ken Burns channel) to ensure that the truth gets told and history is recounted accurately for fear that this 'American Genius' type of rubbish becomes the only record that growing minds get the chance to see!

Great, loved it, learned a lot. Would watch it again!

My only real question is why is this show on Nat Geo? Who the heck is Giorgio A. Tsoukalos and why is the History channel full of bullcrap about ancient aliens and reality television when it should be replaced with shows like American Genius.

To talk about the show, I mean it's obviously dramatized some. The real people didn't necessarily say or do exactly what the show portrays, but they make sure that the accomplishments the inventors achieve are all factual and very real. The people you learn about in this show are tremendous inspirations and I'm glad some of the lesser known's are receiving their days.

The American public education system doesn't teach about men like Filo Farnsworth or Glen Curtiss and learning about them has been captivating. Can't wait for this weeks episode with Oppenheimer and Heisenberg.