This is the first part of a two-part miniseries on Abraham that kicked off a larger series of Bible-based TV movies & miniseries. Make sense? With a full running time of almost 3 hours and ten minutes, this series has the time to expand the story and dig into the characters and it does it really well. This one gives us some extra-Biblical backstory on Abraham and his family issues that lead to him striking out on his own when he is spiritually awakened to the presence of the one true God. It then takes us up to the FIRST fall of Sodom & Gomorrah, when Lot & his family are taken captive as slaves; that’s a part of the Abraham narrative that most people just leave out entirely and it’s also a darn good cliffhanger with a nice action battle scene leading into it. This miniseries is available on blu-ray where you can watch it as a single three-hour-and-ten-minute movie; I actually kind of prefer splitting it up since that’s how it was originally broadcast and because that cliffhanger to this episode really works. And I should say that, on blu-ray, the image quality is surprisingly good; for a television production that’s thirty years old now, it looks great. You can tell a lot of money went into it. It also boasts a solid ensemble in supporting roles: Vittorio Gassman as Abraham’s father Terah, Barbara Hershey as Sarah and Maximillian Schell as the Egyptian Pharaoh. Gassman and Schell are both only in this first episode, not the second.
But the real star here is . . . well, the star, Richard Harris, who is genuinely brilliant. Abraham is a patriarch most known for his great faith, but Harris finds doubt and real vulnerability in the character. His Abraham is deeply troubled and sorrowful at times, struggling with his relationship with God and the way it impacts his relationships with those around him. And yet the series never makes Abraham seem like a lunatic or offers a “revisionist” take on him; it just views the icon as a genuinely good man trying to do the right things who also failed in those efforts and struggled with his faith. I really do love this miniseries; more on episode two shortly. 4 stars.
tl;dr – part one of a two part miniseries does a great job expanding the Biblical narrative of Abraham in a respectful, but interesting way; star Richard Harris gives a fantastic performance. 4 stars.