March 14, 2008 - HBO's "John Adams" Makes It Three for Three for Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks is a movie star now, and has starred in some great ones. But he started in TV (with the sitcom Bosom Buddies), and, as an executive producer, understands it better than most. He knows, for example, that the miniseries is one of the medium's most important genres - and knows what to do with it.

After starring in Apollo 13 in 1995, Hanks took his continued fascination with the space race to produce his From the Earth to the Moon miniseries for HBO three years later. Then, three years after starring in Saving Private Ryan in 1998, Hanks channeled his passion about WWII into another HBO miniseries, Band of Brothers, in 2001.

For John Adams, which begins Sunday night at 8 ET on HBO, there's no big-screen acting-vehicle predecessor, just Hanks' enthusiasm for the David McCullough Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of the second President of the United States. (Sorry if that's a spoiler.)

Hanks, though, has made enough spectacular historical miniseries of his own to recognize a great subject when he sees one. And Adams, with his stubborn principles, his nation-shaping arguments and his adoring, outspoken, opinionated wife Abigail, is a great subject.

I've raved elsewhere about this miniseries, and the performances by Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney as John and Abigail Adams. In fact, I'm scheduled to provide a review for today's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, so listen for it there.

But because I love the miniseries form so much, and hate to see how the broadcast networks have let it die on the vine, I'll use the rest of this space to say I'm especially grateful to Tom Hanks for championing the form. This is a guy who can find other work - but he knows that the long-form drama can tell stories in a way that not even a three-hour movie can approach.

John Adams is something to enjoy, to treasure, to look forward to watching. Television needs more of that - and the fact that HBO is providing it, and the broadcast networks aren't, says something very meaningful about them both.