'American Revolution' TV Review: Ken Burns' PBS Series Timely

In many ways, Ken Burns is the Van Halen of historical documentary directors.

Before you jump, hear me out.

Watching the acclaimed filmmaker’s upcoming The American Revolution with some apprehension, it became clear that the six-part PBS series is the soulmate to Van Halen’s seminal but commercially disappointing 1981 album Fair Warning – in a very good way.

Debuting Sunday on PBS stations, the often-languorous American Revolution has all the slow pans across paintings and maps that appear in all of Burns’ work from 1981’s Brooklyn Bridge to The Civil War, 2009’s National Parks , biographies of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, 2011’s Prohibition , 2017’s The Vietnam War and last year’s Leonardo da Vinci .

Along with Burns and his and co-directors David P.