Manhattan: You Always Hurt The Ones You Love First Watch

October 20, 2016 12:26 PM - Season 1, Episode 1

Brilliant young physicist Charlie Isaacs (Ashley Zuckerman) is recruited to work on a top-secret Army project in the summer of 1943. He drags his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) and son to a little outpost - PO Box 1663, Los Alamos - in the New Mexico desert.

Charlie is called to work for Dr. Reed Akley (David Harbour) on something called "THIN MAN."

Meanwhile, misfit physicist Frank Winter (John Benjamin Hickey) leads a small, underfunded team on an alternate design, the Implosion Group. It consists of Glen (Daniel Stern), Fritz (Michael Chernus), Jim (Christopher Denham), Helen (Katja Herbers), Paul (Harry Lloyd), and Sid (Eddie Shin). He clashes with the security program imposed by the Army colonel running the site (Mark Moses), and pleads for resources from Robert Oppenheimer (Daniel London).
Frank also has troubles on the home front, having himself dragged his botanist wife (Olivia Williams) and teenage daughter (Alexia Fast) to the site

It is July 2, 1943. 766 days until Hiroshima.

recap from TV Fanatic and from the Atmoic Heritage Foundation. RT gives it 90/91.

Manhattan is complicated and captivating

What’s encouraging, though, is that Manhattan is more than just its setting—in fact, the first two episodes presented to critics go well out of their way to shake up our notion of what a World War II story is. Despite many available clichés, the narrative eschews anything obvious—this is a character drama first, and a war story second. Or to be more exact, it’s a character drama that is using the setting of Los Alamos, New Mexico, the site of the Manhattan Project, to pull all of its characters through the wringer.

This series is available on Hulu

posted by the man of twists and turns (1 comment total)

Even though this show doesn't hit the mark in historical accuracy, with its composite characters and anachronisms, I like it.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:18 PM on October 20, 2016