When We Rise

Fueled by these performances, it frequently and undeniably rises to great heights. But add up everything that When We Rise has going for it, which is considerable, and, well, the whole is somewhat less than the sum of its parts.

The drama grows more plainly mature in the last few volumes, but the sheer amount of what Lance Black and the creative team are biting off here ends up limiting just how knowledgeable, sincere, and convincing the series comes off as.

The miniseries reaches for the sweep and heft of a theatrical effort, although an excess of earnestness prevents it from fully taking off.

When We Rise feels a little rote and predictable in its main characters’ trajectories but given its subject matter and airing on a broadcast network, that also works to the program’s benefit.

The narrative strains to fit in dramatic moments, but time restrictions squeeze out poignancy and power. And every episode hews to the blunt screenwriting aesthetic that defines most broadcast fare: heavy on exposition, and willing to sacrifice confusing or ambiguous emotional moments for the sake of clarity.

As vital as it is, political strategizing just isn’t that engaging to watch.

There are attempts to humanize the LGBT story, to give the epic some intimacy and specificity by following three activists in San Francisco across the years--feminist Roma Guy, community organizer Ken Jones, and Cleve Jones, mentee of Harvey Milk and founder of the AIDS quilt. But those stories, like so much here, ultimately feel reductive and superficial, lost in the process of following every twist in the rights struggle, and making each twist comprehensible to unaware viewers.

As a tool for outreach, the show is admirable, but as drama, it falls short of its ambitions.