Wonderful character development!

Pretty Good

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Some reviewers are being way too critical. The show has to repeat things (as most History Channel shows do) in order to catch a new viewer. Love the Texas accent on on the astrophyscist, Surely, they will make more episodes because Tesla's work was too important to abandon the study now. I want more!

Tesla...Some just know it as the groundbreaking all-electric car company. Of course everyone in the civilized world's life is extremely touched by Tesla's AC power and wireless patents everyday without ever thinking who pioneered it all. That's a serious omission in the population's collective consciousness. How could this be? All of us of a certain age intuitively knew that when the phone in our homes rang it was because of Alexander Graham Bell. History for whatever reasons largely marginalized, or even erased, Nikola Tesla who was a man whose life's work had so much more impact on the world than, probably, any other human being. This is a mystery that deserves delving into.That's the set-up for History's "The Tesla Files" TV series. The show has three men of different persuations equally perplexed by the relative obsurity of the link between the man and his groundbreaking advancements which still have a huge impact in our everyday lives. Returning after a his former series "Rocket City Rednecks" got axed is astrophysicist Travis Taylor. Travis is a disarmingly whip-smart scientist who has worked for NASA and lives in Huntsville, Alabama. He certainly isn't your typical "egg-head" scientist and therein lies his charisma. It's as if you or me is sets out on a mission to find a hidden truth. He has two cohorts who bring to the table some welcome talents. Mark Seifert the author of what has become the best-selling Tesla biography to date and investigative journalist Jason Stapleton. Combined they believe they can prove some of Tesla's theoretical unfinished work and reveal even more that was scooped up after Tesla's death by the US government. It's a mixed bag as you might imagine. Some care by the crew does, more or less, actually prove some things while their paper trail researching often comes up short.Here's the deal. Tesla is so important for the present, and possibly the future, that he deserves any attention that may be given. Uncovering the smoking gun of something as amazing as his AC induction motor is proving much more enigmatic. There are signs that, yes, Tesla was on to more amazing inventions and technologies. But, sussing these out 75-years or so later is more mystery than anything else. This is where the show, sadly, decends into similar History show pitfalls. Like Hitler escaping or real buried priceless artifacts on Oak Island much is speculated and little definitely proved. The show is entertaining enough without the discovery of anything sinister and groundbreaking. Tesla is so important that any attention at all is a good thing. That said I'm feeling it is, however, a show for those already with a keen interest in Tesla and science. The entertainment factor is just not enough for the average viewer while the true-life mystery is a great hook for the person who is already sold that Tesla was hampered after his initial great success by both his own eccentricness and, more so, by some extremely powerful persons. As such. I can enjoy this series quite a bit and hope it finds a decent enough audience to really go deep into the mhystery of why Nikola Tesla became almost unknown until recent times. I say give it try for yourself.

You've seen this format dozens of times before. Each new episode starts off with previews of the last episodes and can go for 15 minutes before starting properly. It is highly repetitious and continually flashes back to scenes from previous episodes and you keep saying to yourself 'yes, I know that' and 'you've already said that'. It's as if they have very little information and are trying to tease it out to fill in the time. Originally I was quite excited to see this. A promise of an actual investigation into a highly influential if somewhat mysterious inventor. The fist episode was great and then it slid badly into Reality TV and all the usual traps. There is a lot of speculation no backing material which shouldn't be hard to prove or disprove. My patience for this came to an end in episode three when they overlooked some promising leads and instead opted for the wow factor which didn't happen. One of the questions was 'How did Tesla afford to spend the last 10 years of his life in a, for that time, upmarket hotel like the New Yorker?' another question regarding the building of a huge generator in the basement area directly below the New Yorker that could power three building the same size. My thoughts were that they would ask to see records from the archives to find out who paid for his room and meals, receipts and bills of loading for equipment that must have been delivered to the New Yorker to build the generator. And maybe search for his tax returns to see who was paying him. ummm no, nothing. Next they went to a building that housed some of his equipment and were told that they couldn't enter because of toxic mould. No worries, bio-suits and cameras? umm no, a drone with limited footage. And, it seems the graffiti artists had no problem with toxic mould. They didn't even bother to find out who manufactured the equipment in there (another source of informtaion?). Basically for an Investigative Reporter, he's a bit shallow in digging for information. A promising series but I don't think these two could find an anchovy in a pizza. But then I guess that's not why they're doing this series.It's a 2 from me for actually spelling his name correctly.

The problem with this series is the annoying repeated statements and lack of depth in support of their claims. The amount of hearsay and inference that has no support other than the opinions of a interviewees and the experts followed in the episodes. Furthermore, poor editing, along with the constant repeating of previously stated opinions, just makes this whole attempt to uncover the story behind Tesla's time in the states a pointless exercise.