James Woods

James Woods plays Karl Weiss on Holocaust (NBC, 1978), the 1970s NBC miniseries that put the Shoah in American living rooms as a four-night event. Melodrama as civic education, messy and massive; a German broadcast fight followed.

Karl is a face the event requires — not a lecture, a person inside the hours networks usually ducked. Woods sells the scale without turning the assignment into a pose. Meryl Streep among the early heat; the conversation is the point.

Karl Weiss only works if the series around it is a place. Holocaust (NBC, 1978) is that place. James Woods’s Karl Weiss put NBC’s Holocaust into American living rooms as a four-night event — Shoah as 1970s miniseries civic education, melodrama massive enough to force a conversation networks usually ducked. Messy, watched, argued.

A one-night map opens on s01e01 (The Gathering Darkness is night one of NBC's living-room Shoah. Melodrama as civic education, messy and massive: the miniseries already forcing a conversation networks usually ducked). If you want the hour that still shows the bruise, hold s01e02: The Road to Babi-Yar is the second night named as a killing site. Event television using a place-title as homework: Streep among the early heat, commercials still in the breaks. A third pin is s01e03: The Final Solution is the third-night title saying the policy aloud. Civic education as appointment drama: the German broadcast fight still ahead, the American living room already enlisted.

On TV Flash he is the event’s human weather. Watch it as the miniseries that forced a national argument. We file Woods as 1970s civic-television craft: the Weiss who made a four-nighter feel inhabited, still the reason a living-room event can be more than a ratings stunt.