User Reviews

I watched this in the UK and was keen to see the first two episodes as it's from a time I'm not that knowledgeable of. I will admit that a few weeks ago I watched the Peter Jackson World War doc and the colourisation process was amazing. On this show it ain't too bad and does add something to the footage. I would not have watched if it was in black and white and not in hd. Cool history, top narration will definitely watch the following episodes. Nice too see a documentary that gives you the facts with no agenda except to inform and educate. Thumbs up.

This is an excellent documentary that tells the story of America, beginning in the 1920's, through actual home movies and other footage that has been colorized. Narrated by Liev Shreiber, who also narrated America, The Story of Us in 2008, this show takes you through the pages of history, in living color.

As an Australian we have a similar doco for our country, and historical footage looks just as odd converted from B&W. It loses its authentic look. Also as a 'foreigner' it's interesting to note other reviewers complaining about "it's not America, that's a continent" or it's politically biased Left/Right/whatever.

Americans are so Americentric that they can't see themselves as the rest of the world sees them. Besides 'America', we call it many names - USA, the United States of America, United States, etc and although I know Yanks like to simplify it to just "the States" that term usually means something different elsewhere. In Australia it means those States that are part of the Commonwealth of Australia that aren't Territories such as ACT and NT.

My point is that documentaries like this aren't necessarily meant for just the country they refer to and therefore are written in global terminology. In that respect I found the doco suitably informative, spoken in vernacular I easily understood. Personally I don't think the colourisation (that's colorization in Yank-speak) adds anything, a bit too 'lipstick on a pig' if anything. I don't mind black and white at all, it's what I grew up with and seems fitting.

One of the best documentaries I´ve seen in many years. To have them converted into color and high definition is just incredible, with details never seen before. Good for school classes, for children and adults as well.

When America is converted to color, it is as if their is a modern relevance between today and the America of yesterday. It is great because I can see similarities between modern America and America of early industrial times. When a person watches historical america in black and white, a person cannot see how historical America resembles modern america.

The color really brings the times to life. I wouldn't listen to those complaining about the quality of the color, it's better than black and white.

Many of the stories told here I have never heard of so it was refreshing with a documentary packed with unknown facts (like pole sitting who has ever heard about that?!) but told in a very entertaining and informative way. The thing however is the colorized footage which I loved but also a bit confusing because of all the footage I've seen from this time have been in black and white, so it is like re-programming the brain. If you're ever going to do a quiz there's great material for you here!

I saw it most when it was free. I will watch the balance when it is free. It is an ongoing TV series from (2017).

Because this is "America in Color" where because of availability it is selected history by decades. The advantage is there are a lot of home videos to supplement the standard history documentary.

There are no overt agendas from the presenter and the narrator's (Narrated by Liev Shreiber,) monotone will not put you to sleep.

S1E1 The 1920s S1E2 The 1930s S1E3 The 1940s S1E4 The 1950s S2E1 The Wild West S2E2 Titans of Industry S2E3 Organized Crime S2E4 Playtime S2E5 American Royalty S2E6 Hollywood's Golden Age S3E1 Coming to America S3E2 Alaska S3E3 Disasters S3E4 Made in the USA S3E5 Crimes of the Century S3E6 Small Town Life

As of this review the last episode S3E6 Small Town Life was made in Jan 2020.

The history of the USA (not America, which are two continents ...) is here extremely well documented and explained simply and without concessions or judgement on sensitive subjects such as racism, immigration, ... The narrative is however filled with superlatives, which are supposed to highlight US's grandeur, but sound more like exaggerations (like, the US scientists invented seismology, which is not a fact), and this sounds both annoying and appealing to nationalist superiority complex.

Interesting footage, but it's such a pity about the commentary. The view of history pours on the social justice and left-wing bias with a ladle. It gets really annoying. It's a very infantile, sour view of history with a total agenda that's served up here. A condescending view of the poor which seems to think its doing them a favour. I found it all hard to stomach after a while and watched with the sound off much of the time.

I tried watching a couple episodes of "America in Color" on The Smithsonian Channel and felt really, really annoyed. Using technology no better than that used back in 1985 (or so), the folks behind the series took old film footage and colorized it...very, very badly. All the flesh tones were the same and it just was incredibly ugly...and distracting. To make it worse, MUCH of the footage needed to be cleaned up (as it was blurry) and colorizing just made it worse. Why someone thought bad colorization equates to watchable TV is beyond me...and the show, while interesting at times, seems second or third-rate.