TURN--entertaining colonial American history series

[Ovation]

Available on Netflix (in Canada, at any rate) and various other media, TURN is a series (four seasons) set during the American Revolution. As I have been prepping a fall course on US History to Reconstruction, I have been looking for suitable excerpts to illustrate various aspects of the colonial/revolutionary period. TURN is about a spy ring operating for Washington and is generally quite well done. Like all such historical presentations, strict accuracy is, at times, sacrificed for drama, but it is done so judiciously and without any significant deviation from the broad historical record. The acting is excellent in almost every case, the attention to period detail is rigorous and I recommend it to anyone looking for a more satisfying (and nuanced) look at the period than what is on offer in The Patriot. Along with the HBO John Adams series, TURN provides a good sample of the period.