After viewing "two hours of honest Alamo," I can safely say that the program takes more twists and turns than the Golden Snitch at a Quidditch Cup tournament (with apologies to you Harry Potter fans.)
The Good News...We get plenty of analysis and historical build-up... the "whys" and "wherefores" of the Spain--Mexico--Texas connection. This provides a reasonable context for the rest of the program. The set for the "reenactment" portions was very well done, as were the scenes portaying Mexican soldiers. Clearly, there was a desire to inject more of the Mexican perspective into the discussion, which I fully applaud. (Heck, since Santa Anna killed practically everyone in the mission, who else do we have to rely on for accounts?) The computer-generated digital graphics were good, although IMHO those showing the Alamo complex were not as complete as those offered by the Discovery Channel. I for one would have liked more close-ups of the compound, explaining specific actions during the final attack. Alas! Were were forced to endure arial graphics of toy soldiers, rather than the more sophisticated "opforc" graphics technology that has been out there for several years. Many of the reeencator protrayals were more believeable than past efforts... unfortunately the "sweaty" Jim Bowie and the portly Davey Crockett ("oink oink... too many Twinkies!"
) was a distraction. The Travis persona seemed quite good, and the Santa Anna persona appeared to be among the best in the production. The sequence studying the effect of round shot against the adobe and stone walls of the fort was fasinating!
The Bad News1. The academic talking heads have learned a new word: "filibuster." We're told a filibuster is an American who goes to a foreign land then at peace with the United States, in order to stir up trouble and foment rebellion. Interestingly, the word stems from a Spanish root meaning "freebooter," or adventurer. The word appears in neither Webster's 1828 dictionary or John Russell Bartlett's
Dictionary of Americanisms. The HC stumbles over itself in a rush to condemn white Anglo American freebooting slaveholding filibusters in their shady dealings within Texas and elsewhere, ingoring Mexican legislation that ENCOURAGED both emigration and the "emprissario" system that parcelled land off to the arriving settlers. We are treated to scornful prose regarding these nasty Americans... paritcularly their affectation with slavery... when the true iconoclastic nature of the program takes hold--- a rip on the Alamo trinity: Travis, Bowie, and Crockett.
A. Travis. We are told that Travis essentially abandoned his wife and family in Mississippi for a freebooting lifestyle. Nowehere in the program is the revelation that Travis reportedly caught his wife in the sack with another man, and killed him. The judge, responding to an understandable 'crime of passion,' indicated that he would look the other way if Travis left the state. Is it any wonder Travis went "GTT?"
B. Bowie. Ahhh... Jim Bowie was clearly the HC's most hated man. I really loved William C. "Jack" Davis' characterization of Bowie as a "white collar criminal." (Right... this from a guy who has published six books on the Civil War over 120 times.) Like "filibuster," the HC's talking heads employ modern imagery to explain 1820-30s events... thereby enjendering in the viewer a viseral, not an intellectual response. Bowie made his fortune in slave trade and land deals... and the HC claimed that his hold on what amounted to some 780,000 acres was based on fraudulent, concocted, forged deeds. Of course, the HC presents not a single shred of evidence for this grave assertion, preferring to name-call and portray the actor Bowie in a bar-room (how disreputable!) crafting his forged deeds amid plumes of smoke. Please.
Crockett: Crockett's life story is raced through pell-mell in the program's attempt to get to HIS main crime: the HC's allegation that Crockett wanted to be "president of Texas!" Zounds! No proof, mind you... but hey, just take the HC's word for it-- that's what he wanted! (In fact Corockett most likely was looking to rebuild his political career, and has never been quoted as saying he wished to preside over the new republic.) In another scene, overlayed with a copy of a newspaper, Crockett was quoted as saying he'll "have Santa Anna's head." Pretty inflammatory, eh? Yet the viewer can read the print in the background which stated the original quote, aleging that Crockett stated hed have "Santa Anna's head as a watch seal"-- an obviously sarcastic comment that the HC took out of context... again to create a viseral reaction in the viewer.
From this point on, the program twists, turns, and even argues with itself. Mexican independence from Spain is fine; Texian independence from a Mexico lead by Santa Anna (who went from federalist to centrist to dictator and repudiated the 1824 constitution) was an abomination. That nasty wife-leaving Travis, and that criminal and slaver Bowie have their images not merely softened, but even lauded as the program entered its final half-hour!
After devoting nearly half the program to the claim that Anglo-American slaver filibusters instigated the conflict, viewers are treated to some rather well-done coverage of Santa Anna's transformation from Federalist to brutal dictator, in fact denying the rights and priviledges his earlier policies defended. This reality argued starkly with one of the professorial talking heads, who laughably asserted that the revolt in Texas was not about "freedom."
We are told that the Texian war with Mexico evolved into a tale of racially motivated animosity (I have NEVER heard this angle EVER until the airing of this program) expressed in a scene in a ca. 1915 black and white "Alamo" movie, where in one scene a Mexican soldier manhandles a white woman and is subsequently killed by a white Texian. This apparently was a 'proof' of the "brown vs. white" racial arguement. Yet earlier in the HC's own program, the narration and the reenactments covered the murder and rape of dozens of Texians early in Santa Anna's campaign to put down the "revolt!"
When the smoke cleared that awful morning, we're told there were "60 Mexicans" found dead on the ground. That's all!
We're told that perhaps double that in wounded (the military standard is normally 1:3), yet not a shred of proof is offered for this assertion-- despite ample accounts.
Missing completedly from the program, although a few of these items WERE depicted in the reenactment sequences, was any discussion on or explaination of:
- Tricolor flag with two stars, not "1824"
;
- Santa Anna helping the surviving women;
- Crockett’s death location;
- Travis’ “line in the sand…”;
- The two men who slipped out… but the failure to mention anything about Louis “Moses” Rose.
In the end, HC's "Remember the Alamo simply can't stay on course. The discourse, shifts, twists, and contradicts itself. It offers much better perspective, but little new rinformation. In attempting to be iconoclastic, it succeeds only in presenting opinion as fact. In its attempt to be fair to Mexicans, Texans, and Americans, its conclusions are so watered down that by the end of the program, it essentially restates the very positions it has attempted to tear down.
Dios, libertad y Tejas!
Bob Braun
Postscript: Why all the ca. 1825 Army chakos? Why a TAM-O'-SHANTER?
And couldn't anyone connected with the production make a decent shawl-collar vest?
in the early weeks of the American Civil War! 
for my analysis and review of the HistoryChannel's overly-hyped "The Alamo" episode, which aired last night.
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And couldn't anyone connected with the production make a decent shawl-collar vest? 