From this expanse of solitude, a great secret is soon to be revealed to the whole of man.

At the dawn of 1945, great minds toil sleeplessly.

Their tools-- the very principles of the universe. Their aim-- nothing less than a lasting peace for the world entire.

It would be a hulking task for a deity. But these are not gods. These are mortals. These are men. They have hopes and dreams, needs and desires. They have fears and misgivings for what the future may hold.

They are the makers of a coming history we are all headed toward.

History is too often not what happened, but what was recorded. A lie set down on paper with wet ink becomes a truth when dry.

Such is the case of this history, here in the quiet desert. Here we find men whose achievements will be snatched for the glory of others, whose sacrifices will be forgotten as detritus. The cleanest telling would draw one great man in whom we could find a teachable narrative, an exemplar of what, should we give it our all, we could become.

But those stories are myths. This is, as best I understand, that honest story. It is not simple, and few emerge untarnished. It is a story of the unknowable future and all the gnarled turns the present takes on its journey toward the world of tomorrow.

The show has some of the most ambitiously creative depictions of scientists I've seen in a work of fiction. This alone qualifies for the five-star. The speech by Frank mid-season about why continuing to build the bomb was evil, right before FDR died, and the one given by Charlie in the penultimate episode as a reply, about why a demonstration of evil was necessary, are some truly powerful writing.

Some flaws:

1. The mixing of real and fictional characters can be a bit bizzare. The show did not seem to figure out what to do with the real larger-than-life character of Robert Oppenheimer. There's plenty of biographical material to make up for it now. Let's hope Christopher Nolan does a good job.

2. The character of Liza Winter, Frank's wife, is a creative failure. You can tell that the writers tried to give her story, plenty of lines, plenty of screen time, but it just didn't work. It also did not help that they cast a British actress with a half-baked American accent for the role. I have a good ear for stuff like this. More of a curse than a blessing.

3. In fact, Liza ties in to a bigger problem: although Helen Prins and Frank's daughter had some interesting moments in the show, overall the female characters were just not written well. I understand the creative choice to make women interesting in a period drama by focusing on how some are finding ways to independence and feminism, but there seems to be a lack of imagination as to what those ways can be. Mad Men has been done before, and we don't need another one.

4. For all the talk of "The Gadget," the clearly not-so-cheap set and props, the show never really showed us that many gadgets of the era. For example, the "IBM machines" they kept referring to during the first season; even the desert itself, surely could've been featured more to have some say in the broad theme of "man and nature," right? I don't know, it could be that I associate the New Mexico desert a bit too much with modern classics like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.

Show creator Sam Shaw did say he knows what story a third season would tell, but it also sounds like he does not expect there'll ever be a chance for it. I hope after he retires at a ripe old age, maybe he can turn it into a novel?

這部劇正如同字幕組翻譯那樣，風(fēng)格既有歷史感，也題材新穎，雖然科學(xué)家的研究探討比較少，主要題材偏重于科學(xué)家私生活以及人倫道德觀念探討，但是還是不錯(cuò)的一部美劇:

在廣袤無垠的荒漠上，一個(gè)巨大的秘密即將展露于人世間。1945年初，優(yōu)秀的科學(xué)家們徹夜無眠。他們的工具——宇宙最基本的法則。他們的目標(biāo)——僅僅是為了世界的永久和平。這原本是神明都難以完成的龐大任務(wù)?？伤麄儏s不是神。他們是凡人。他們是蕓蕓眾生中的一員。他們有希望和夢(mèng)想，有需求和欲望。他們對(duì)全然不可知的未來有恐懼和擔(dān)憂。他們是我們所盼望的即將來臨的歷史的締造者。歷史往往不在于發(fā)生了什么，而在于記錄了什么。謊言陳列紙上，墨跡一干，即成真相。這就是在這片寧靜的沙漠中的歷史，偉大學(xué)者的成就會(huì)被他人以榮譽(yù)為名竊取，他們的犧牲會(huì)被如瓦礫般忘卻。毫無瑕疵的故事會(huì)將偉人描述成教科書式的人物，一個(gè)我們?cè)敢鈨A盡所有，努力成為的榜樣。但那些故事都是虛構(gòu)的神話。而這，在我看來，才是最真實(shí)的故事。它并不平凡，其中鮮有完人。這是一個(gè)關(guān)于不可知的未來的故事，所有這些蜿蜒曲折會(huì)讓我們一步步走向明天的世界。

From this expanse of solitude, a great secret is soon to be revealed to the whole of man. At the dawn of 1945, great minds toil sleeplessly. Their tools -- the very principles of the universe. Their aim -- nothing less than a lasting peace for the world entire. It would be a hulking task for a deity. But these are not gods. These are mortals. These are men. They have hopes and dreams, needs and desires. They have fears and misgivings for what the future may hold. They are the makers of a coming history we are all headed toward. History is too often not what happened, but what was recorded. A lie set down on paper with wet ink becomes a truth when dry. Such is the case of this history, here in the quiet desert. Here we find men whose achievements will be snatched for the glory of others, whose sacrifices will be forgotten as detritus. The cleanest telling would draw one great man in whom we could find a teachable narrative, an exemplar of what, should we give it our all, we could become. But those stories are myths. This is, as best I understand, that honest story. It is not simple, and few emerge untarnished. It is a story of the unknowable future and all the gnarled turns the present takes on its journey toward the world of tomorrow.

小時(shí)候讀《恐懼的總和》，覺得湯姆克蘭西對(duì)核彈引爆的那段描寫特別無聊晦澀——又是聚變?cè)鰪?qiáng)。又是中子反射、裂變代數(shù)之類的，整個(gè)核爆炸幾百納秒的過程硬是說了一章，初中的時(shí)候跟逼看不懂。直到掌握了一些核物理知識(shí)以后再看，覺得精彩絕倫！于是在知乎，谷歌上查“二相彈”的設(shè)計(jì)資料，剛好知乎上有個(gè)人貼出了本劇的截圖。 從第一季追到第二季，我的感覺是本劇不論從史實(shí)的演義和時(shí)代的還原、對(duì)人性的表現(xiàn)到演技都是一流水準(zhǔn)。 我是邊查資料邊看的，frank winter的原型就是后來T-U構(gòu)型里的“T”——“氫彈之父”泰勒。（U是烏拉姆） 在看這個(gè)劇之前，我是一個(gè)自以為是的歷史軍事迷，覺得自己知道的挺多。 諾依曼，烏拉姆等人為了模擬沖擊波和中子在核彈內(nèi)傳播的方式時(shí)所使用的蒙特卡洛算法（第一季里各種一算算幾周的那種工作）——是在沒有電子計(jì)算機(jī)的時(shí)代發(fā)明的第一種有限元模擬算法?，F(xiàn)在的大多數(shù)工業(yè)軟件還在使用 現(xiàn)在我還知道，CNN拍的冷戰(zhàn)紀(jì)錄片講到過曼哈頓的意義，frank那種一廂情愿想把核彈扔到無人區(qū)來嚇尿日本的做法，很可能無法在戰(zhàn)后建立穩(wěn)定的核威懾。查理是對(duì)的，只有親眼見過了魔鬼的威力，大家才會(huì)乖乖的不惹事。這點(diǎn)可以類比一下《三體》里的劇情。 未達(dá)臨界的核裝藥電離輻射很低（比如穩(wěn)定的貧鈾和钚，只要不吃下去，揣一塊兒玩一年都沒事），钚沒有毒.....什么是電離輻射，它損害人體的原理是什么....手機(jī)電腦發(fā)出的輻射根本不包含電離輻射，那些防輻射商品除了碘片都是為了騙你錢....等等等等 看了這部美劇，能聯(lián)想到很多自以為熟知的東西其實(shí)一無所知，不要把自己僅僅局限在自己原來的那點(diǎn)愛好里，而且低調(diào)做人肯定有好處。感謝那些做出決定把核彈扔到廣島長崎的人，謝謝導(dǎo)演和編劇，還有所有辛勤的制作人員們。在下受益匪淺! 總之，Manhattan 是很喜歡的一部劇，可惜第三季被砍了，這部劇題材雖然在二戰(zhàn)期間，故事需要你慢慢品味，這里面的角色顛覆性也是非常大的，可能會(huì)讓你改變復(fù)對(duì)奧本海默認(rèn)知，但是更能讓你看到科學(xué)家不為人知的另一面故事。

增加了人物和線索之后戲劇性更強(qiáng)了，甚至有些過分，讓這個(gè)劇徹底成為了一個(gè)獨(dú)立于歷史之外的虛構(gòu)世界。幸好還是拍到了試爆成功，雖然沒有第三季，但是至少有一個(gè)短促的休止符。可惜Frank成為了一個(gè)搖擺不定的人，他的道德矛盾可能在這樣的背景下是合情合理的，但是削弱了第一季的硬派形象，好像成為了各種價(jià)值觀的傳聲筒。Charlie也更多地成為一種形象而非一個(gè)人物。但是，基于扣人心弦的劇情和安利本劇的意圖，還是要給五星

奧本海默被黑慘了，然而竟然不覺得OOC，真是神奇……