While HBO's The Wire enjoyed critical success, it suffered from dismal ratings. However, HBO's John Adams has enjoyed both ratings success and universal praise from critics. For good reason, Tom Hank's executive-produced John Adams is the best dramatic depiction of the political side of the American Revolution and early American government ever put on the screen. I would highly, highly recommend it. If you don't have HBO, you can still grab the episodes(encoded in HD) from BitTorrent.

Last night's episode dealt with the rift between Jefferson and Hamilton that exploded over the French Revolution, with Jefferson being pro-French and Hamilton being pro-England. Sometimes we (or at least I am guilty of it) forget how much the reaction to the French Revolution played in importance to the forming of political parties. Jefferson saw the French Revolution as an extension of the American Revolution while the Federalists feared the radicalism of the French revolution was spreading to America. Indeed, the Federalist's enactment of the Alien and Sedition Acts was largely motivated by the fear of French Immigration stirring up revolutionary dissent. However, Americans rebelled from such legislative extreme measures and elected Thomas Jefferson over John Adams when Adams ran for re-election, despite Federalist charges that Jefferson would bring the French revolution to America. However, by that time, even Jefferson recoiled at the brutality that had sprung from the French Revolution and laid down his anarchist/revolutionary sentiment. He distanced himself from the radicals and made peace with the political moderates. The rest, of course, is history.

If for no other reason, you should watch John Adams just for David Morse's almost perfect replica of George Washington and to view in HD, just how strikingly an imposing figure George Washington was compared to his contemporaries.