Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Abraham Lincoln’ On History, A Docuseries-Drama Hybrid About The Life And Presidency Of Lincoln

Presidents’ Day weekend 2022 should be redubbed “Lincoln Docuseries weekend,” as we have two major docuseries projects debuting. But while Apple’s Lincon’s Dilemma is more focused and straightforward, History’s Abraham Lincoln, part of a series of presidential docuseries/drama hybrids produced by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin based on her books, is more expansive. But just because they cover a lot of the same ground doesn’t mean that one way is necessarily better than the other. Read on for more.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A train in Harrisburg, PA. A woman tells the conductor that her uncle is frail. That “uncle” is actually Abraham Lincoln, traveling in disguise from his home in Illinois to Washington, DC to his inauguration.

The Gist: Abraham Lincoln is a three-part docuseries/drama hybrid, directed by Malcolm Venville, that takes a comprehensive look at Lincoln’s life, from his childhood in Kentucky, Indiana and the Illinois frontier to his stewardship of a divided country during the Civil War.

The series, which is executive produced by Doris Kearns Goodwin, punctuates its many interviews, with historians like Goodwin, Edna Greene Medford, Dr. Caroline Janney and luminaries like Barack Obama and Gen. Stanley McCrystal, with scripted reenactments. In those reenactments, Graham Sibley plays Lincoln, Jenny Stead plays Mary Todd Lincoln, Stefan Adegbola plays Fredrick Douglass, and Richard Lothian plays Stephen Douglas.

The first two-hour episode starts viewers out with Lincoln’s hardscrabble childhood on the frontier, where he had to bury his mother then fend for himself and his sister when his father set off to find a new wife. He learned to be a hard worker, but he also was a voracious reader, and he wanted a life for himself that didn’t include hard labor as a component. He was also a skilled storyteller, weaving truth, white lies, folksiness and a lot of humor to keep people’s attention.

We see Lincoln’s time as a young lawyer, his courtship with Mary Todd, his depression when his career and relationship go up in smoke, only to rise a year later, his time in Congress when he came out against the Spanish-American War, and his success as a litigator after his time in Congress. But the emphasis of the episode, like Lincoln’s Dilemma, which also came out the same weekend, is Lincoln’s views on slavery.

Goodwin and the other historians make sure to point out that Lincoln was anti-slavery, but was not an abolitionist. He was against the institution spreading north and into the country’s newly acquired territories. As the country was tearing itself apart over the issue, Lincoln managed to find a platform when he ran for Senate and had his famous debates with the pro-slavery incumbent, Stephen Douglas. He narrowly lost that race, but his showing in those debates, where he was able to boil down complicated issues into everyday talk, set him up to aim for higher office in 1860.

The episode ends in a logical spot: With the siege at Fort Sumter starting shortly after his inauguration. That fort’s fall is what drags the union into battle against the newly-formed Confederate States of America.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Abraham Lincoln has more of a biographical bent than Lincoln’s Dilemma or Lincoln: Divided We Stand. This isn’t the first time or the last that History and Doris Kearns Goodwin have teamed for a docuseries/drama hybrid about a president: Washington aired two years ago and Theodore Roosevelt is set to air in May.

Our Take: Like the aforementioned Washington, Abraham Lincoln makes good use of its scripted sequences, with Venville and the series’ writers having the freedom to create these well-done vignettes of Lincoln’s life without needing to figure out a plot to tie them all together. It also helps that Sibley embodies Lincoln so completely, both in his craggy-faced, stooped-over physicality and the folksy manner that endeared him to so many.

The interviews — which this time around, include Goodwin along with Obama and other experts, along with some that overlap with Lincoln’s Dilemma — are all engaging, and never veer into the hagiography that accompanies biographies of Lincoln. The focus of Abraham Lincoln is broader than Lincoln’s Dilemma, and at times isn’t quite as biting in its analysis, but it does its best to be honest about Lincoln’s views on slavery, and how surprising his nomination and win really were.

Where this series shines is some of the details it gives about how he got the nomination, where he started with a surprisingly high number of delegates at the Republican National Convention and then slowly got the required votes via multiple rounds of voting, thanks to some horse trading by his representatives. It also pointed out how he put each of his election rivals in his cabinet, knowing that he wanted experts in their fields who won’t be yes men.

Yes, there is a lot of overlap between this series and Lincoln’s Dilemma. But both are worth watching; it just depends on how you want your Lincoln history delivered to you.

Parting Shot: Lincoln gets word that Fort Sumter has fallen to the Confederacy and says, “We’re at war.”

Sleeper Star: Jenny Stead, as the emotional but powerful Mary Todd Lincoln, shows exactly what kind of steadying influence she was in her husband’s life, and why she was as important an advisor to him as anyone in his administration.

Most Pilot-y Line: At the RNC, Lincoln’s representative Judge David Davis (Joe Vaz) pumps his fist and says “Yes! Yes!” when Lincoln secures the nomination. Sure, that could have been something people did back in 1860, but we doubt it.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Abraham Lincoln is a bit more ambitious and bigger in scope than recent Lincoln-centric docuseries, but it treats its audience with respect, both via well-done reenactments and fantastic interviews.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.