Ken Burns‘ The Civil War, which first aired in 1990, was an enormous television event, and Burns has focused on major events in American history, from the rise of jazz to Prohibition to the glory days of baseball, ever since. His latest project sees him returning to the battlefield, and with The Vietnam War, PBS wants to be very sure you’ll see the whole thing.
PBS has a pretty aggressive schedule for the ten-part, 18-hour documentary. The first episode will air Sunday, September 17th, with an encore rebroadcast right after, and that’ll repeat with the first five episodes each day up to Thursday. Then, the next five will air the same way, starting on September 24th. But if you happen to miss it, don’t worry, as PBS will start re-airing the whole thing October 3rd on Tuesdays through the end of November.
Or if you want to stream it, the first five episodes will be up on PBS’ various apps on September 17th, and the second five to stream September 24th, although we’re not really sure this is something you want to binge. Either way, it’s likely to be a huge TV event: It’s easy to forget The Civil War was a massive sensation, sort of the original binge watch, with 40 million people watching the whole thing straight through in a week. Just, hopefully, Burns has learned his lesson about reusing music, because if we never hear “Ashokan Farewell” again, it’ll be too soon.
(via PBS)
