Review of Pilot

The Americans: Pilot (2013)
Season 1, Episode 1
7/10
Good, but...
2 March 2014
It was a good story line but I'm deducting points for the fact that they did a poor job of capturing the mood of the era and some inaccuracies. There were several things that didn't jive with the times. One of them was the fact that several of the men in the episode had no hair, it was very uncommon to have shaved heads in 1981, besides Kojak at the time there were very few people that would've embraced that look. The scene where he was sitting in the park, there was a lady walking around with a modern stroller. And the police officers were talking into modern radios when communicating with each other, that would've never happened.

Also the scene where Elizabeth's character is sitting in the bedroom and she uses a wireless remote control to shut off the TV, while remote controls existed at the time it was very, very unlikely that somebody would've had a wireless one to control the TV in their bedroom. In 1981, even cable companies did not provide you with a wireless remote.

Then there were the scenes at the mall, malls at the time were still in their infancy stages and would not have look anything like a modern mall especially the department store scene.

Lastly, I take issue with their house. First of all, it looked way too modern from the outside. Also, that while they did a good job with the kitchen making it look period, the rest of the house still looked way too modern such as the painted moldings, which at the time would have been wood stained. The garage had unfinished walls, which is more a of a recent practice by contractors.

I would've really liked to see them do a better job with setting the mood of the era, other than that it was a good storyline and I will continue to watch.
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