A large cloud of deja vu descends on the small screen, and it is with some irritation that we ultimately say to our television sets, ''I've read the book." (This would be David McCullough's biography of Adams that virtually everyone in the galaxy appears to have consumed.)
That said, ''John & Abigail Adams" is a smart, handsome production, well acted in re-creations by Simon Russell Beale and Linda Emond. Writer-producer Elizabeth Deane has fielded a varsity roster of talking heads, including McCullough and Joseph Ellis. Ellis's command of big judgments and telling color is untouchable.
Best of all, we glimpse the greatness of this collaborative effort on paper between husband and wife. Over the years, they penned more than 1,000 letters to each other. Beale and Emond read memorable passages from these missives, which stand as testament to what can be expressed between two smart people who write well. (So much for e-mail.)
One gem is Abigail's feminist admonition to John when the Declaration of Independence was being drafted: ''Remember the ladies," adding, ''All men would be tyrants if they could." He replies, ''In practice, you know we are the subjects."
''John & Abigail" also gives us solid history from the roots of the Revolution to Adams's death bed, with nearly as much attention devoted to his vertiginous relationship with Thomas Jefferson as with Abigail. Still, we are privy to Abigail's years of loneliness and struggle at the homestead in Braintree, where she was responsible for maintaining the place and raising four children with minimal help while writing a stream of letters to her husband marbled with wit, reason, and passion.
He, in turn, ached for her presence near him at the Continental Congress, in foreign postings, and as Washington's vice president. We follow the arc of his career along with his prickly personality. (Ellis says Adams's favorite form of conversation was an argument.) We see his rampant insecurities, his towering integrity, and the vision that kick-started this country.
