A Historical Spy Thriller Series Is One Of The Best Shows About The American Revolution

The Revolutionary War TV series "Turn: Washington's Spies" aired on AMC from 2014 through 2017, lasting 40 episodes over four seasons. It was based on Alexander Rose's history book "Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring," which detailed a 1770s spy circuit called the Culper Ring, originally founded by Benjamin Tallmadge and, yes, George Washington. The ring's name was based on the aliases of the two men in charge. According to Rose's book, Abraham Woodhull and Robert Townsend used the code names Samuel Culper, Sr., and Samuel Culper, Jr. The Culper Ring had been tasked with finding out where invading British soldiers might strike and engaged in traditional sneakiness (including, by Rose's account, ciphers and invisible ink) to determine attack sites and elude capture. 

Naturally, this story is prime fodder for a big screen adaptation, and Rose's book was adapted into "Turn" by Craig Silverstein. Woodhull was played by Jamie Bell (whom we've interviewed), and Townsend by Nick Westrate, although Townsend didn't become a regular part of the series until its third season. The series also starred Seth Munrich as Tallmadge and Angus Macfadyen as the soldier Robert Rogers. Ian Khan played George Washington (very different from his turn in "America: The Motion Picture"), but the series was ginger with his appearances at first. He didn't really become a series regular until the second season. The cast, however, was vast, so listing them all here would take up too much space. 

The first season of "Turn" wasn't terribly well received by critics, but reviews improved over time. There aren't many TV shows about the American Revolution, so "Turn" is a rarity that history buffs might want to check out. It's currently on Prime Video.

"Turn" follows the events of the Revolutionary War closely, taking viewers through the history step by step. The series begins in 1776, when the British had just won a victory at Long Island, allowing them to establish a military base in New York. General George Washington was forced to retreat, and a new military tactic was required if he wanted to win the war against the British. The spy ring is first mentioned in the very first episode, and the rest of the show goes undercover to detail its formation and operation. It's all heavily fictionalized, of course. 

Each episode only ran about an hour (give or take), but it was broad and full of incident. This is one of those shows, it seems, that requires a lot of extra reading. Or, at the very least, a complex and working knowledge of the Revolutionary War. It's a show for dads. Well, also for fans of UK character actors, as the cast is lousy with recognizable faces. John Anderson's review in the Wall Street Journal noted that "Turn" took the Revolutionary War away from the sappy depictions of the conflict that schoolkids might have gotten from the likes of James Fenimore Cooper. 

The main criticism of "Turn" was that it was boring. Tim Goodman's review in the Hollywood Reporter noted that history should be more interesting than anything "Turn" did. He wrote: 

"It doesn't take a genius to realize that Abe will eventually turn and become a spy for the Americans, but the pilot takes a long, long time getting there. If you're going to create a hero, you might give him a spine of steel instead of cabbage."

Abraham Woodhull was a cabbage farmer before he was a spy.

In Variety, Broan Lowry wrote that the series was dull. He liked the photography and production design, but added: 

"The inherent tension viewers have come to expect from a spy yarn feels as muted as the color palette beyond those florid Red coats. And the hours progress with only marginal momentum, suggesting the show might prove as long a slog as the war itself." 

Lowey also wasn't keen on the show's second season. The show was enough of a hit, however, to last multiple seasons, and its later years were reviewed more favorably (albeit by fewer critics). Jim Lebrecque of EW noted that the series was indeed muted, but that the intrigue and traditional spy things had increased a great deal in the show's second year. He said the villains of the series were just as delicious and evil as anything in a James Bond story, and accepted that the villains were the Brits this time. 

The fourth and final season of "Turn" aired in 2017, and Labrecque was still very keen on the series, giving it an A-. As with many shows, though, fewer and fewer people watched it as it went on. Eager to turn "Turn" into a franchise, AMC also, perhaps bafflingly, published a tie-in prequel comic in 2014 that details the events leading up to the series. It traced the early friendship of Woodhull, Anna Strong (played by Heather Lind in the series), Caleb Brewster, and Ben Tallmadge, and how they first came to hate the British. 

This series seems painfully detailed in its eagerness to delve into history, and those who want to see how America came into being will likely dig it. We called it one of the best war shows of all time.