History Channel Instant Expert Series (Ben Franklin/Beowulf/Egypt/The French Revolution/The Mayflower/The Story Of Oil/A&E DVDs)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C Episodes: B
In one of
the most interesting special interest series we have seen in a while, The
History Channel (via A&E) has issued a documentary series very amusingly
entitled the Instant Expert series,
which includes multiple releases for what is expected to be an ongoing series
of these educational singles in the Cliff Notes mode. The six releases we looked at include:
Ben Franklin (an American
History installment) runs 94 minutes and is a very entertaining and
informative tale of the innovator and tells us not only of his many
accomplishments (many of those you may not have heard about) but his personal
life and how freewheeling it was. I
liked this one in particular and its timing is excellent in a period of
reactionary, populist, anti-educational politicking that thinks no one can
remember anything about the past.
Beowulf (an Arts & Literature installment) runs 47 minutes and is likely
from a program made around the time a few feature films were made on the
subject of this mythology, but it tends to be better than any of the feature
interpretations as it gets to the point and knows how to move on, so it works
well too.
Egypt (an Ancient History installment) is yet another look at the
long-enduring country whose past is as vital as its present and future with a
healthy 92 minutes long program that has its share of surprises. That is good considering all the programs
(including extensive ones by A&E and The History Channel) that have been
done over the years.
i
The French Revolution (a World History installment) runs 90 minutes and does a decent job of
telling the tale of how this important, key outbreak of change happened, then
receded. With their budget, they do
their best with locations and costumes, but just don’t expect Stanley Kubrick’s
Barry Lyndon and you’ll enjoy
it. It is also a major piece of history
that has been too ignored in recent decades and it is great it is part of the
first wave of releases.
The Mayflower (an American History installment) runs a very long 138 minutes and
tells you just about everything you need to know about The Pilgrims arriving to
The New World and all the good things, bad things and consequences of their
arrival. It avoids the tired political
debate about all this and tells us what happened as thoroughly as it can. Would be worth seeing after watching Terrence
Mallick’s The New World (especially
uncut on Blu-ray)
The Story Of Oil (a Science & Technology installment) runs 94 minutes and is also
an excellent look at the history of oil, petroleum, gasoline, the age it
launched that we are still in and what are the upsides and consequences
thereof. It is thorough about how oil
was discovered in Titusville, PA (Western Pennsylvania) and how that changed
and shaped the world we live in, but it offers so much more and in contrast to
the many interesting recent documentaries about the downside dangers of the
industry. The BP/Halliburton disaster in
the Gulf Coast makes this the most timely of the
discs here.
The
letterboxed 1.78 X 1 image (1.66 letterboxed of the French disc for some reason) on each DVD is on the soft side
throughout instead of anamorphically enhanced, though some of the footage used
is older since they have quite an archive and extensive licensing going on, so
thus is the expected documentary look.
You do get some staircasing and slight digititis here and there, but
these look good color-wise and otherwise.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has some moments of monophonic sound as
expected from older footage, but is usually nicely recorded and edited. Extras include paper pullouts with questions,
activities, web links and recommended books, while each disc has a quiz.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
