Line #24 YMMV/Roots1977


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2	* AngstAversion: The horrors of slavery are shown so blatantly that the series can be a hard watch, especially when [[spoiler:it takes until Chicken George is an old man for anyone in the Kinte family to get free from slavery]]. Mind, [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools this isn't the show's fault]]; [[TruthInTelevision it's only being honest]]. It's just that the series works mostly as an educational tool than any kind of entertainment.
3	* FirstInstallmentWins: The nearly unanimous opinion of critics and viewers regarding the two miniseries. While the second one is excellent in its own right, it's generally regarded as lesser than the first. The {{Interquel}} ''Roots: The Gift'' and the parallel MiniSeries ''Series/Queen1993'' don't fare as well with critics.
4	* HilariousInHindsight:
5	** The sequel series being titled "The Next Generations" after the original introduced us to Creator/LeVarBurton of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''.
6	** Four actors who appeared in ''Roots: The Gift'' starred in ''Franchise/StarTrek'' series: Creator/LeVarBurton in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', Creator/AveryBrooks in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' and Creator/KateMulgrew and Tim Russ in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''.
7	* MandelaEffect: [[SignatureScene The famous scene]] where Kunta Kinte gets whipped until he accepts his name as Toby, though often referenced and/or parodied for BlackComedy, is often misremembered. For one, the Overseer doesn't whip Kunta himself, he has a Black slave doing the dirty work. In addition, the Overseer is often remembered as being quite bloodthirsty, screaming at Kunta to accept the name Toby. But in actuality, the Overseer (though definitely cold-hearted and cruel), was more composed when punishing Kunta.
8	* MoralEventHorizon: Tom Moore crosses this in his second scene when he rapes Kizzy. Strangely, he has a few PetTheDog moments afterwards.
9	* {{Narm}}:
10	** The telegraph employee enthusiastically yelling "IT'S WAR!" in an excruciatingly high-pitched voice.
11	** 33-year-old Leslie Uggams is embarrassingly hard to watch as the teenage Kizzy. Luckily, she improves significantly while playing her real age.
12	* OneSceneWonder: Creator/MarlonBrando as George Lincoln Rockwell in ''The Next Generations''.
13	* RetroactiveRecognition:
14	** Creator/TraceyGold played the young Missy Anne Reynolds in Part IV of the original miniseries.
15	** [[Series/DifferentStrokes Todd Bridges]] played Bud Harvey in Part VIII of the original miniseries.
16	** Debbi Morgan played Elizabeth "Liz" Harvey in all but the last episode of ''The Next Generations''.
17	** Brian Stokes Mitchell played John Dolan in Part I of ''The Next Generations''.
18	** Gerald [=McRaney=] played Harry Owens in Part II of ''The Next Generations''.
19	** Creator/IreneCara played Bertha Palmer Haley in Parts III, IV and V of ''The Next Generations''.
20	** Philip Michael Thomas played Eddie Franklin in Part III of ''The Next Generations''.
21	** Kristoff St. John played the young Alex Haley in Part V of ''The Next Generations''.
22	** Kim Fields played Lydia Haley in Part VI of ''The Next Generations''.
23	** Creator/ErnieHudson played a Muslim in Part VII of ''The Next Generations''.
24	* SignatureScene: The whipping scene where Kunta accepts the name Toby (by sheer force). Out of all the scenes, this one is most referenced and parodied. Even those who have never seen this series know about this scene.
25	%%* SpecialEffectFailure: The "old" makeup.
26	* TearJerker: Among the most memorable sad sequences are when Kunta is whipped in front if the other slaves until he accepts his name is now Toby, and when after finding out that Kizzy is literate, and helped forge freedom papers for another slave, Dr. Reynolds sells her to Tom Moore, while Kunta and Bell watch helplessly as their daughter is taken from them.
27	** Fiddler's death. While Fiddler "finally knows how it feels to be free," to paraphrase the way that Kunta puts it, Kunta still loses the closest thing to a father figure that he has had since arriving in North America, and unlike in the novel, he dies very shortly after Kizzy's birth, meaning he cannot become a grandfatherly mentor to her as well.
28	* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: In more recent years the series has been knocked a bit for expecting us to sympathize with Captain Davies just for feeling kind of bad about propagating the slave trade, but not enough to actually ''do'' anything about it.

Context YMMV / Roots1977