"Episode 3 – The Turk

Opening Monologue
When I was in the mental hospital I became obsessed with science. Not all science actually, and not really science at all. Scientists. And then only nuclear scientists. The ones who invented the bomb. Oppenheimer, Heisenberg, Fermi, and Teller. Pioneers. Geniuses, all. I read every book I could. I wanted to understand. Why couldn’t they stop? These fathers of our destruction. And why wouldn’t anyone stop them? And if I had the chance, would I?

Closing Monologue
On July 16th, 1945 in the mountains outside of Los Alamos, New Mexico, the world’s first atomic bomb exploded. A white light pierced the sky with such intensity that a blind girl claimed to see the flash from a hundred miles away. After witnessing the explosion, J. Robert Oppenheimer quoted a fragment of the Bhagavad Gita declaring, “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” His colleague, Ken Bainbridge, put it in another way when he leaned close to Oppenheimer and whispered, “Now we are all sons of bitches.”
Now we are all sons of bitches.

Episode 4 – Heavy Metal

Opening Monologue
When John was little, before bed I used to read him fairy tales. One night I read him a folk tale called, “The Golem of Prague” the story of a clay monster made by a Rabbi to protect the Jews of the city. What I failed to remember was that the end of the story the Golem turns on its maker and kills him as well as the rest of the town. He didn’t sleep for months. I went to him and tried to tell him it wasn’t real, that I’d made it all up. Somehow, that made it all worse.

Closing Monologue
The pride of man, of parents as well, makes us believe that anything we create we can control. Whether from clay or from metal, it is in the nature of us to make our own monsters. Our children are alloys all, built from our own imperfect flesh. We animate them with magic and never truly know what they will do.
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Episode 13 - Earthlings Welcome Here

Opening Monologue

In 1490, the Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca landed on the shores of the New World seeking power and fortune. He was immediately attacked and captured. Almost all of his traveling companions murdered. Enslaved, de Vaca chose to embrace his captors' beliefs and learned their ways - he became a healer. Over time he was freed, and de Vaca attracted his own following who believed he had the power over life and death. The desert had transformed him. He was not the first and he would not be the last.
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