Atlantic Crossing

I've read that Shakespeare's Hamlet and Macbeth have little to do with the actual historical characters and events on which they are based. Still, I've never met anyone who cared about that in deciding whether they liked those plays.

The same approach should probably be taken to this series, which plays fast and loose with World War II history. But that's hard to do, because we're so much closer to the real events that this series rewrites than Shakespeare's audience was to minor figures in Medieval Scottish and Danish history. (Did they know anything about those fields at all?) It was very hard for me to sit through the depiction of the female lead, the Crown Princess of Norway, inspiring Lend-Lease, for example. I can imagine that Swedes don't particularly enjoy seeing their former king portrayed as a Nazi sympathizer. But if you don't know anything about World War II history, then I guess that wouldn't bother you. Just as I am not bothered, in reading Hamlet, by the discrepancies between the play and Medieval Danish history.

What we are left with is imitation Downton Abbey - lots of nice-looking aristocracy and their homes, not too much concern with unglamorous commoners.

Also a story to inspire timid women: a timid young princess - think Princess Diana - comes into her own and eventually grows a backbone. She even helps to save Western civilization. A story lots of timid women could relate to.

If you're a World War II history buff, or a guy, or a woman who does not need fantasy history to feel inspired to develop her potential, this will probably seem like a long-winded costume drama, which is what it actually is.

But if you're part of the intended audience, you might enjoy it. And so long as you don't mistake what happens for history, I don't know that there is any harm in that. George Washington didn't chop down that cherry tree, after all, yet Parson Weams' tale of how he did but then did not lie about it provided moral courage to countless young Americans of a previous era. If this series helps timid women develop moral strength, that wouldn't be a bad thing.

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I just watched Episode 6. When FDR, having learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, goes first to see the Crown Princess to find courage to deliver an address - what becomes the *A day that shall live in infamy* address to the joint houses of Congress - I almost puked. The rest was pretty much the same thing. FDR turns out to be a lover who finds strength and inspiration in an initially timid Norwegian princess. It's sort of like bad old-fashioned Disney applied to World War II history. Bad imitation old-fashioned Disney.

I just watched Episode 6 of Atlantic Crossing. It has gotten worse each week.

This takes "inspired by true events" to a level of fantasy that is beyond ridiculous. I am now finding it truly appalling. I feel like I am watching a bad Hallmark TV movie, but this disaster wants to style itself as somehow based on facts when it is preposterous.

Really, who at Masterpiece thought THIS was a good idea? It cheapens WWII and FDR into a dime store romance novel and is an insult to anyone who actually learned about the Roosevelts by watching Ken Burns' true masterpiece documentary, "The Roosevelts: An Intimate History", also on PBS.

I would say it is almost funny in its absurd depiction of FDR, Eleanor and Missy LeHand - but I found it stupid, offensive and bordering on the bizarre.

I'm done with this drivel. Just makes me wonder why Masterpiece and WGBH had anything to do with this disappointing fiasco.

This may strike other viewers as trivial nitpicking...but it made me wonder how careful the series makers were about other matters. Episode 3 has Norway's U. S. Ambassador greeting the Princess after her transoceanic voyage, to lead her to the press briefing he's set up. He's quite proud to tell that representatives were present from all the press, radio broadcasters, AND TV!! In 1940, what's 'TV'?!

This could have been a masterpiece of historical storytelling with a script that focused on the Norwegian peoples' suffering under Hitler and the Royal family's many efforts to free them. But after the first riveting episode, the script becomes stuck inside Sweden's politics, Buckingham Palace and Washington DC with boring storylines that go nowhere. Honestly, I was insulted for the brave Norwegians and their Royal Family. They deserved far better, especially from Masterpiece Theater.

The historical accuracy of Atlantic Crossing is debatable but comments that there was no TV in the U. S. in 1939 and 1940 are dead wrong. During the 1939 World's Fair David Sarnoff, president of RCA, unveiled the first commercial publicly accessible television broadcast. I know because I was there. During the opening ceremonies of the Fair on April 30th, FDR became the first president to be televised. TV sets went on sale to the public the next day and were featured in NYC store windows.

From May through December 1939, NYC NBC station (W2XBS) of RCA broadcast twenty to fifty-eight hours of programming per month, Wednesday through Sunday of each week. The programming was 33% news, 29% drama, and 17% educational programming, with an estimated 2,000 receiving sets by the end of the year. The coverage area for reliable reception was a radius of 40 to 50 miles (80 km) from the Empire State Building. In June 1940, W2XBS covered the Republican National Convention for 33 hours during a five-day period. W2XBS also began transmitting NBC News with Lowell Thomas on February 21, 1940.