The story of “U.S.”?

I’ve put this more obnoxiously elsewhere (Twitter doesn’t allow for much nuance), and inaccurately too, since I ascribed the problem, knee-jerk, to my old favorite target PBS (nervous newbie Twittering inspiring rush to judgment on my part) …

But still! I really am bugged to learn that the upcoming twelve-hour History Channel documentary “America: the Story of Us,” a sweeping history of just what its title implies, moves from the founding of Plymouth Colony to Lexington and Concord in ninety seconds.  Same old story, taken here to nearly grotesque extremes: the colonial period as mere prologue to the “real” thing. But there’s no chance of even beginning to get any realistic feeling for our history without a dive into the first 150 years of European expansion into North America. And with twelve hours…! At least give us Bacon’s Rebellion, the revised New England charter, the Anglo-Iroquois empire!

The producers’ dispiriting decision in this case suggests a tired, foregone AP American History mood to the whole thing. We’ll see. In the meantime, I’m trying to “tweet” more slowly. Or at least less heatedly.