I like it. The acting is pretty good. And the characters aren't as one dimensional as in most tv shows.
Olivia Williams f.i. is great as the troubled scientist wife.
The whole secrecy angle (can foreign agents blackmail you?) adds an interesting drama to human foibles.
There's even a dutch actress in it whose accent does not induce cringing. Has anybody seen the show? Is her accent believable to americans? I guess not because she portrays a Dutch scientist.
My old parents have asked me recently what I'd like to inherit. I couldn't think of anything. But seeing the use of a hand drill in the show made me decide to ask my father if I can have his hand drill.
I started watching it after seeing someone here or on MeFi recommend it to someone else. I was a little leery after I got a Mad Men vibe, but I'm being won over. Also, Olivia Williams - yes.
I'm not very far in, so I haven't encountered the hand drill, but I do recommend asking for your dad's drill. I have an old Stanley hand drill that my father found for me, and the only reason I finally bought a power drill again was because the hand drill couldn't accept a 3/8" bit when I needed to make pocket holes for a headboard.
Personally I think that Manhattan compares rather favourably to Mad Men. The production values of Mad Men are amazing but the gist of the story feels to me to a large degree "beautiful people being unfaithful" and charicatures of what people were like (racist!, sexist!, manners! etc) in the 50s.
The characters in Manhattan seem much more nuanced and thus interesting to me.
Regarding that hand drill: to me it's so typical of my father that he's still using a hand drill that he got second hand in the 50s. So unassuming and diligent. I love my old dad.
Also it's a beautiful object: two speeds!
(I remember pretending as a child that it was a sten gun. Because of that stock it's called a Brustleier in German as I just found out.)
