REBELLION TOWN, Williamsburg, 1776

Taylor spotlights pre-Revolutionary Williamsburg rather in the manner of Phelan's successful present tense reconstructions of highlights of American history, but with somewhat less drama and immediacy as he covers a time span of eleven years and frequently switches, like a nervous camera, from Williamsburg to Philadelphia or Boston (though at other times, anchored in Williamsburg, we feel cut off from the main action), and there is no one central event to unify the pieces. However, the closeup shots of debates and confrontations bring home the significant role of a number of now illustrious Virginians in the early struggle for independence, and the unfolding career of Patrick Henry -- bursting in with his maiden speech in the opening episode, providing highly charged radical leadership through the first years, ousted by rivals from the defiant colony's rebel army, occasionally veering toward conservatism as the Revolution gets under way -- gives the snowballing movement a human focus.