I read the title for THE '90s: THE LAST GREAT DECADE?", and I'm surprised at just how dour this thing tends to be. More often than not, the material covered is either tragic or salacious. They cover pretty much every national tragedy there was (The L.A. riots, Waco, the WTC bombing, Oklahoma City, O.J. Simpson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Columbine) as well as the tabloid fetishism of the time (Princess Di, Jerry Springer, Monica Lewinsky, Clarence Thomas) . . . it was either lurid or horrific. What's funny about that is the miniseries closes itself out with nearly all of its talking heads pontificating on how great everything was; this time of sweet optimism.
It doesn't come anywhere near the compulsive watchability of THE '80s: THE DECADE THAT MADE US, but I stuck with this just to see what they'd cover next. Aside from brief mentions of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and WAG THE DOG, movies were largely absent. We can all agree that there's just too much that happened to be covered with any meaningful depth in a six- hour miniseries, but it really felt like they were going for only the dirt and disaster that happened. And there's a superficiality to how they cover this material that seems appropriate for such a shallow period.
It's a good watch, but I wouldn't sit down for it again.
6/10
It doesn't come anywhere near the compulsive watchability of THE '80s: THE DECADE THAT MADE US, but I stuck with this just to see what they'd cover next. Aside from brief mentions of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and WAG THE DOG, movies were largely absent. We can all agree that there's just too much that happened to be covered with any meaningful depth in a six- hour miniseries, but it really felt like they were going for only the dirt and disaster that happened. And there's a superficiality to how they cover this material that seems appropriate for such a shallow period.
It's a good watch, but I wouldn't sit down for it again.
6/10