The fifty-first TV show: #642 Angels In America
Angels in America is a mini series that, watching it for the second time as I watched it for this list, feels special. It features some of the biggest Hollywood names - Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, Al Pacino - who put in an amazing performance together with actors less known at the time such as Jeffrey Wright, who more than rise to the challenge. A lot of the actors pull double - or even up to quadruple duty - reflecting the origins of a stageplay, where the actors would jump between roles, switching genders and being in places in the scenes where they fit best.
All of this is in service of these characters, well drawn and three dimensional. The main ones grow, the lesser just as often are there to allow the others to grow, and they play off each other. You can focus on how effectively Meryl Streep disappears into the role of a (male) rabbi - and she does - but that's just a practical step needed from the play. Her mostly silent Ethel Rosenberg is amazing, but would feel like little more than a cameo in other parts - here tormenting Al Pacino's Roy Cohn. But her role as Hannah Pitt, mother of the closeted Joe Pitt, shows a journey of a mother growing, learning and understanding while giving hope to other characters.
Al Pacino is one of the few who doesn't double on roles, but he plays a role that so many revolve around. He plays an interesting character (based on a real person) in a way that really feels like he did it because he cared about doing it. The feeling comes through for all of these actors. Emma Thompson doesn't really have any of the major characters, but she almost steals the scene when she appears - almost, because everyone gets that chance to shine.
Last that I want to call out is Jeffrey Wright, who plays Belize and others, and is the Tony award originating actor of that role (once both parts of it debuted together). He has a few different interesting characters, and while they all have some level of internal optimism, the different portrayals become interesting. Belize in particular feels special. A gay nurse, he helps those who would hate him and feels like the one most likely to stand by his friends - even if he will tell them the truth, and certainly makes some morally ambiguous decisions. As I read elsewhere, the angels here aren't necessarily the mythical creatures that show up in the fantasy sequences (if they are a fantasy sequence, the show keeps it vaguely ambiguous in places), but are the people in real life who are trying to do the right thing.
And that's the main place where the story works. It is difficult to remember sometimes how much easier it is to be gay in our modern times. Still not always easy, with its problems, but with the rise of AIDS and the fight for equal rights that was starting, it was a difficult time. This show explores it - in what I feel is a decent exploration fo the issues, although I obviously can't tell that from my own experience. It shows people losing each other and coming together, gaining understanding and support, but also working out what the right thing to do is. It's a story of salvation, of being human, and of moving forward. This is more than exemplified by the angels, the ultimate beings of good, who have stagnated and want humanity to stagnate, but also appears as corrupt because of this. It's about an upcoming apocalypse, but also about how we're in charge of it. And n a way it feels good that, even though it hasn't been perfect, there have been these points where people have gotten together to make it better, or at least try to survive, while at other times cutting out the bad influences in their lives. With plenty of infighting, but there's something both hopeful and depressing about the show, and strength of many of these characters is what gave me hope.