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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
14
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
TV InsiderNov 17, 2025
Season 1 Review:
The American Revolution achieves that goal brilliantly, sidestepping romanticism of the period (see Outlander) and stripping away myth with a grounding in granular reality. While never losing focus on heroes like George Washington, whose triumphs and mistakes are scrutinized by a diverse faculty of scholars, the series brings history to life through the accounts of lesser-known participants.
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Nov 17, 2025
Season 1 Review:
At two hours per episode, “The American Revolution” is a considerable commitment, to say the least, and Burns’ familiar narrative rhythms, with their slow pans, solemn music and heavy commentary, can feel like a relic of another era of television. Millennials and Generation X might recognize this style from the many times a history teacher wheeled a large television into a drafty carpetless classroom, yet, within that formality lies a deep sincerity.
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Nov 14, 2025
Season 1 Review:
The series makes its case the way Burns’s whole body of work has: by trying to tell a full story and trusting, maybe with quaint optimism, that all kinds of Americans will want to hear it. The series might well draw controversy pointing out the founders’ contradictions. But “The American Revolution” is also deeply patriotic. It gushes with love for America’s natural beauty, for its democracy and for its professed, if not always realized, ideals.
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Nov 14, 2025
Season 1 Review:
Contemporary battlefield sketches, grand post-war history paintings, elegant portraits of the major military and political figures, along with watercolor illustrations and unobtrusive live-action recreations bring the tale to life. As in other Burns projects, the narrative is knit together out of many individual stories, but it’s Washington, the commander of the army, who stands out here.
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Nov 12, 2025
Season 1 Review:
At times Burns uses reenactments, in a somewhat generic way. And despite the length, things move pretty swiftly. Still, we learn more about how bloody the fighting was, how violent, as well as the deep divisions between communities and even families. And while there is no shortage of heroic, if flawed, figures, what holds the film together is what held the colonies together: ideals, which live longer than men.
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Nov 17, 2025
Nov 6, 2025
Season 1 Review:
The American Revolution is smart, thorough, sincere in intent, and still of undeniable and uncomfortable importance with or without direct reference to the current political moment. At 12 hours, it’s also dry and a little languid, relying on storytelling techniques.
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Nov 13, 2025
Season 1 Review:
Their sanctimonious approach to history becomes very tiresome very quickly. This is unfortunate, and not just because it affects the viewing experience, which is as numbing as a winter at Fort Ticonderoga. .... The Burns-Botstein-Schmidt review is certainly enlightening, at least about who did what and where and why—the military strategies can be fascinating, though. .... When the most energized aspect of a documentary series is the talking heads, it says something.
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