Jackson Zaremba

The documentary has an obvious 'anti-American' bias, which is immediately evident in the first episode. While a documentary focused on the atomic bomb would rightfully cover Hiroshima in great detail, including many firsthand accounts of Japanese civilians, it also provides a great deal of attention to Japanese interment camps and the firebombing of Tokyo. Important events in their own right, but they bear little relevance to the rise of atomic weapons and are highlighted seemingly because they should or can be viewed negatively on the US. While making not a single mention of the gratuitous number of war crimes committed by the Japanese, events that paint the US in a sympathetic light are seemingly ignored (almost incredibly, Pearl Harbor gets less than 30 seconds). This is somewhat maddening because apart from the Manahattan Project itself, actually dropping the bomb on Hiroshima is the biggest inflection point in the history of atomic weapons. And this documentary does a horrible job explaing the circumstances surrounding said decision, quickly placing most of its explanation on the Soviet Union's planned entrance into the war. After one episode, I don't think this documentary is capable of providing a well-rounded and unbiased history atomic bombs and the Cold War. The director clearly has a template: follow the atomic bomb and only detail events (relative or not) that can be used to character assassinate the US. I gave it 2 stars simply because the first hand testimonials from Hiroshima are excellent and almost were enough to carry this poorly done documentary