The series makes its case the way Burns’s whole body of work has: by trying to tell a full story and trusting, maybe with quaint optimism, that all kinds of Americans will want to hear it. The series might well draw controversy pointing out the founders’ contradictions. But “The American Revolution” is also deeply patriotic. It gushes with love for America’s natural beauty, for its democracy and for its professed, if not always realized, ideals.
The result is a wildly fanciful series that feels unsettlingly real at its core. Seven episodes in, I am not entirely sure where “Pluribus” is going. But to its credit, it gives me the uneasy feeling that we could be going there too.
It is also more stylistically adventurous and — perhaps because each episode focuses on a single story — more attentive to the inner lives of its protagonists [than "Red Alert"].
“Red Alert,” created by Lior Chefetz, is the more conventional in form, working in the familiar mode of terrorism drama. .... Kinetic, somber and emotionally intense, it could be any number of streaming-TV terrorism thrillers, but for the fact that its action heroes are ordinary people.
For an airy, refreshing summer diversion, you need no more. What distinguishes the show is how national identity is baked into the concept. It presents a firm, if tongue in cheek, notion of Britishness as something you can feel and taste, but something that is evolving as well.
Starts fast, funny and competent, with an easy command of its mockumentary template. But the template is also a problem; the show feels too much like a Mad Libs version of the characters and dynamics from “The Office” and similar shows, without a firm identity of its own.
Line by line, the laughs are still there. .... The show still deeply understands Hank’s voice and character, particularly how retirement fits uncomfortably on a man who always defined himself by productivity. .... [Bobby's] and his parents’ stories often run in parallel, sapping the intergenerational dynamic of the original series.
