John Adams (TV series)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Note: these are for the the Miniseries John Adams. While YMMV about the president, those opinions should go on his YMMV page.

  • Crowning Moment of Awesome: Although American audiences may be somewhat prejudiced, the inaguration of President George Washington feels this way. It's also Subverted in the immediate aftermath of the passage of the Declaration of Independence when it shows the delegates sitting silently in a room during a thunderstorm pondering the immensity of what they just accomplished.
    • Liberty will reign in America!
  • Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: John's confession to Abigail upon their reunion in France that "My pen was silent not because you were absent from my thoughts, but because you were too much in them." Imagine - Abigail lived alone, raising her children, with her husband overseas, knowing next to nothing of what was happening there, with only occasional word from him - this must have eased a worry that has haunted her for months, if not years. And Laura Linney makes viewers feel every bit of it.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: The opening is pure patriotic goodness, and sets the tone perfectly.
  • Fan Disservice: Sarah Polley naked? Thank you. Covered in scratches? Jesus Christ...
  • Squick Do you hate needles? Heh, who doesn't? DEAL WITH IT. Be thankful you weren't born in the 1700's! Where instead of a little poke, you get a crushed up infected BOIL shoved into an open wound. And then probably die anyway.
    • Not to mention the horrific implications of an early 19th century mastectomy!
  • Nightmare Fuel: Nabby's mastectomy. Truth in Television and Shown Their Work, though they did tone down the horror a bit.
  • Tear Jerker. After knowing Abigail Adams the entire series her death and, especially, John's reaction to it makes us feel the loss that he felt after decades of her as his best friend and wife. Likewise the death of Thomas Jefferson, even though the two of them had split apart for many years, the fact that he and Adams were two of the last great Founding Fathers and died on the same day reminds the viewers of the passing of an age.
    • This is even sadder when you consider the day they both died: July 4, 1826. Fifty years to the day of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a document that Jefferson and Adams had a major role in writing.
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