The BEST episodes directed by Amanda Pollak
#1 - Space Men
American Experience - Season 28 - Episode 9
In the 1950s and early '60s, a small band of high-altitude pioneers exposed themselves to the extreme forces of the space age long before NASA's acclaimed Mercury 7 would make headlines. Though largely forgotten today, balloonists were the first to venture into the frozen near-vacuum on the edge of our world, exploring the very limits of human physiology and human ingenuity in this lethal realm.
#2 - The Great War (2)
American Experience - Season 29 - Episode 9
Chart America's entry into the conflict, examining the breathtaking speed of mobilization and the profound transformations required if America was to play a central role in the Great War. In 1917, the U.S. was deeply divided about going to war. Wilson hired former journalist George Creel to lead an unprecedented propaganda campaign to support the war. But for those who resisted the patriotic fervor, the consequences could be severe. Repressive legislation clamped down on free speech and almost any form of dissent. There was rampant vigilantism, and deep racial divisions still existed. Although controversial at first, in the end, more than four million men served in America’s first mass conscripted army, their ranks reflected the teeming racial and socio-economic diversity of 20th-century America. In the summer of 1918, the Americans arrived in France just as the Germans were on the outskirts of Paris. And soon, the wave of death and misery that Wilson had so feared was coming to pass.