John Adams: Season 1

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 27 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Universal acclaim based on 123 Ratings

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8.5

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8.5	User Score Universal acclaim based on 123 Ratings

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John Adams

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Season Details & Credits

HBO | Season Premiere Date: March 16, 2008

Starring: Ritchie Coster, Justin Theroux, Laura Linney

Summary: The seven-part miniseries on the life of the second US president is based on the book by David McCullough.

Genre(s): Drama

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Season 1 Episodes

tbd
S1:E7. Peacefield
Air Date: April 20, 2008
tbd
S1:E6. Unnecessary War
Air Date: April 13, 2008
tbd
S1:E5. Unite or Die
Air Date: April 6, 2008

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

100

Writers Kirk Ellis and Michelle Ashford do justice to McCullough's narration, and director Tom Hooper has a straightforward style that gives flesh-and-blood dimension to names from history books. Best of all are two extraordinary performances at the center: Paul Giamatti as Adams and Laura Linney as his wife, Abigail. Read full review

Ken Tucker

Who says TV doesn't make history thought-provokingly exciting? Read full review

Robert Abele

A rich, intelligent and often moving miniseries. Read full review

Maureen Ryan

Both the book and the miniseries sketch admirably human portraits of historical figures such as Adams, Jefferson and Franklin. Read full review

Misha Davenport

While John Adams succeeds as entertainment, it utterly fails as a history lesson. Read full review

Heather Havrilesky

Far from epic, John Adams is a biopic as intense and moody as the man himself. Read full review

Alan Sepinwall

There are moments when John Adams stirs up the passion its author clearly had for the subject -- Adams firing off a rifle in the middle of a battle at sea with a British warship, the first public reading of the Declaration, George Washington (David Morse, in the second-best piece of casting other than Giamatti) whispering his oath of office at his inauguration -- but too often it's just as muddy and dull as its subject was accused of being. Read full review

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8.5

User Reviews

Spielberg00

Oct 3, 2011

JOHN ADAMS is (or, rather, was) an HBO mini-series telling of the historical figure of the same name. By the simple title and the promotional poster, you would think that this would only be a shallow feature, giving only textbook information, if that. As surprising as it is, that isJOHN ADAMS is (or, rather, was) an HBO mini-series telling of the historical figure of the same name. By the simple title and the promotional poster, you would think that this would only be a shallow feature, giving only textbook information, if that. As surprising as it is, that is definitely not true. The performances are believable, and the story introduces more facts that possible to learn if they were just spat out at you like a textbook (except in a video, of course). Quite surprising, worth checking out if you can find it on the Internet or re-running on HBO.… Expand

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LukeS.

Apr 17, 2008

it is dead on history and inflammable acting to how john and the rest went about pulling Americas government to its feet.