I saw most of the first part of it, but was unable to watch the second part. Personally, I thought that it was about as fair as could be expected from people who don't accept our religion. As such they had to present both sides of the various issues. That is, they had to present both our and our critics' points of views. In my opinion, this does not make the critics' side any more valid. I just seemed to me that the makers of the documentary did a pretty good job of remaining neutral on the subject matter. I will also write this. While I understand the decision, I think that it would have been nice if they had not spent all of the time on the more controversial aspects of our history and had spent some time on the accomplishments of the early Saints. This, of course, would not have been as interesting to most of their audience. The sensational attracts more viewers than the mundane. I know what some of you are going to say to this suggestion. No, I am not suggesting that those elements of our history be ignored. No, I am not saying that I want the controversial aspects of our history covered up. However, when you only focus on the controversial aspects of a group's history and/or practices, you don't get the entire picture of what that group is like or what they stand for. So, by focusing on the controversial, the makers of this documentary didn't give a very complete picture of our history. Of course, there is only so much that you can cover in just two hours. So, once again, I understand why the chose to discuss what they did.

I saw the special on PBS. I live in California so I don't know if it was the same thing, but it went over everything in the Mormon religion, including temple rituals. As a non-Mormon I thought it did a good job of speaking with active Mormons and ex-Mormons, and covered the good and the bad. I actually just asked a question about baptizing the dead. I didn't finish the special with a negative view of Mormons. It was inciteful, and in my opinion non biast, but I'm not Mormon so I guess I wouldn't know what the biases were.

I am a Mormon, and have mixed emotions about the PBS special on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I feel that four hours on the Church was a recognition of the importance of it in society. However, I believe the documentary made the same mistake most TV programs do. They primarily focus on the spectacular, at the expense of the important. For example unreasonable time was spent on Fundamentalists and their polygamy. The reason they broke away from the LDS Church is because of a hard stand the LDS Church took against polygamy in 1830. That's 178 years ago, yet the film spent 15-20 minutes talking about the Fundamentalist LDS Church. Another example is time spent listening to complaints from those disaffected from the Church. Spending time listening to those who don't believe can in no way help understand the benefit believers experience. Helen Whitney, the producer, interviewer, and main writer for the show was asked, if she had more time, what subject would she like to explore. She answered that she would like to further explore the way the Mormon experience helps people feel more at peace with the world, and more confident of their roll in it. That has far more significance that titillating stories of a different church.

It’s now been well over a year since the shows aired, but I do remember being fairly disappointed with them. I have no problem with them interviewing former members of the Church (although it might have been nice to know which ones were members, former members, and not members thereof), but I think dash1730 hit the nail on the head: “They primarily focus[ed] on the spectacular, at the expense of the important.” For example, the Mountain Meadows Massacre was a horrific tragedy, but why spend 20-30 minutes discussing that while the massacre at Haun’s Mill was barely even mentioned? I also seem to remember several claimed doctrines and/or beliefs that weren’t completely accurate, but again, it’s been over a year. I’ve frankly tried to block it out. :-P