Oppenheimer

Authors:Peter Prince (Screenwriter), Barry Davis (Director), Peter Goodchild (Producer), John Carson, Sam Waterston (Actor), Christopher Muncke (Actor), David Suchet (Actor), Edward Hardwicke (Actor), Jana Shelden (Actor), Manning Redwood (Actor), Matthew Guinness (Actor), Peter Whitman (Actor), Barry Dennen (Actor), Bob Sherman (Actor), Garrick Hagon (Actor), John Morton (Actor), Blain Fairman (Actor), Kate Harper (Actor), Liza Ross (Actor), Peter Marinker (Actor), 2 Entertain (Firm), British Broadcasting Corporation, British Broadcasting Corporation Television Service, WGBH (Television station : Boston, Mass), BBC Video (Firm), Warner Home Video (Firm)

Summary:This miniseries opens in Berkeley, California in 1938, where pampered, tenured professors, safe on the shores of peaceful America, dabble in radical politics as the world heads inevitably towards war. J. Robert Oppenheimer is such a one. Two events--one personal, one scientific--combine to change Oppy's life forever and catapult him from a moderately successful theoretician to a world famous figure. First, news of successful fission experiments in Europe spurs him to pursue a role in the government's efforts to develop an atomic bomb. Second, new wife Kitty is pushing him to advance his career during the coming war years. Oppenheimer wanted to be both a radical and a member of the establishment; was paradoxically both a tortured socialist and a hardened realist. He appreciated the opportunity the military gave him to develop a project he would never have realized in his university career, despite believing that scientists aren't the only ones to pass moral judgments on the results of their experiments. Moreover, although some of the more unsavory aspects of Oppenheimer's career seem to have been deliberately elided, on balance, the portrayal of Oppenheimer is dramatically inclusive, and avoids the pitfalls of portraying him as a tragically heroic figure. After being shown in Britain in 1980, Oppenheimer aired in the US on PBS's American Playhouse in 1982