Jeb Knight

I don’t particularly mind the casting of handsome, clean shaven, Tobias Menzies as bespectacled, bearded, and avuncular Edwin Stanton (a photo comparison reveals the point and speaks to Menzies acting chops). I do mind the dramatization of Booth’s final days at Garrett’s farm—they are without exception the best part of this story and conveyed with great detail in Swanson’s book, which inspired the series. Overall, Booth’s days on the lamb were more Comedy of Errors (as he and David Herold were refused hospitality and shewed out of barns and backyards from Maryland to Virginia) than the last act of Hamlet, but the series does little to convey the overwhelming condemnation people had for them at the time. In the end even Booth himself knew his cause was lost and his actions useless; and he doesn’t deserve the near-heroic pathos the production affords him. Well made but quite contrived, highly fictionalized—which is a shame because the real story is fiercely compelling.