Introduction

Manhattan (sometimes styled MANH(A)TTAN) is an American drama television series based on the project of the same name that produced the first atomic weapons during World War II.

While some historical figures appear in Manhattan, most characters are fictional, and the show is not intended to maintain historical accuracy.

Outline

Set in 1943 and 1944 at the time of the Manhattan Project, the series focuses on the scientists at Project Y and their families in the newly created Los Alamos, New Mexico, a town the outside world knows nothing about. The federal government tells the scientists only what they need to know, while the scientists keep secrets from their families.

The TV show is not intended to be historically accurate, but inspired by history. The show does reference many aspects of the actual Manhattan Project, and some historical figures such as head scientist Robert Oppenheimer. Other contributors to the Manhattan Project, such as Nobel Laureates Enrico Fermi (who moved to the site in September 1944) and Emilio G. Segrè, do not appear.

Cast

• Main:
  • John Benjamin Hickey as Dr. Frank Winter, leader of an initially small group of scientists working on an implosion design weapon (loosely based on Seth Neddermeyer and the E-5 Group at the Los Alamos Laboratory)
  • Olivia Williams as Dr. Liza Winter, Frank’s wife and a botanist
  • Ashley Zukerman as Dr. Charlie Isaacs, a rising young star of the Project
  • Rachel Brosnahan as Abby Isaacs, Charlie’s wife
  • Daniel Stern as Dr. Glen Babbit, mentor to other scientists (season 1; special guest season 2)
  • Katja Herbers as Dr. Helen Prins, one of the few women scientists
  • Harry Lloyd as Paul Crosley, a British scientist who wants to advance at any cost
  • Alexia Fast as Callie Winter, Frank and Liza’s rebellious teenage daughter (season 1; guest season 2)
  • Christopher Denham as Jim Meeks, a scientist. Loosely based on the atomic spies, in particular Klaus Fuchs
  • Michael Chernus as Louis “Fritz” Fedowitz, a scientist
  • William Petersen as Colonel Emmett Darrow (season 2), a US military officer

• Recurring:
  • David Harbour as Dr. Reed Akley, lead scientist for the Thin Man bomb design
  • Eddie Shin as Dr. Sidney “Sid” Liao, a Chinese-American scientist
  • Daniel London as Professor J. Robert Oppenheimer, the melancholic, somewhat reclusive, world-renowned theoretical physicist, and scientific director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory
  • Mark Moses as Colonel Alden Cox
  • Carole Weyers as Elodie, a French switchboard operator.
  • Richard Schiff as Mr. Fisher (aka “Occam”)
  • Jefferson White as Private First Class Cole Dunlavey (aka “Iowa”)
  • Peter Stormare as Lazar
  • Josh Cooke as Lancefield
  • Neve Campbell as Kitty Oppenheimer (season 2)
  • Mamie Gummer as Nora (season 2)
  • Griffin Dunne as Woodrow Lorentzen, a reporter and old friend of Liza Winter (season 2)

Production

Television network WGN America premiered its first scripted show, the historical drama Salem, on 20 April 2014. Peter Liguori, CEO of WGN’s parent, Tribune Media, emphasized a strategy of original content production as a way to improve the channel’s prestige and profile. TV companies producing the show include Lionsgate Television, Skydance Television and Tribune Studios, a WGN affiliate. When announced in April 2014, 13 episodes were ordered.

The series began filming in mid-March across 12 acres (5 ha) in New Mexico. On 14 October 2014, Manhattan was renewed for a second season. Production on season 2 wrapped on 24 July 2015.

David Saltzberg, a physicist at UCLA, acted as the scientific consultant for the show, and Alex Wellerstein, a historian of science at Stevens Institute of Technology who studies the history of nuclear weapons and secrecy, acted as a historical consultant for the show for Season 2, providing period detail to the writers.

Creator Sam Shaw said although that at first the show seems to be about World War II, and the development of the atomic bomb, it was about two eras: the development of the atomic bomb, and after dropping of it on Japan. Speaking about a potential third season Shaw said “the most complicated and morally fascinating and dramatic aspects of the history don’t come until after the end of World War II.” Shaw noted that only Fritz, Meeks, and Winter knew exactly what happened at the end of season 2 and that going forward he hoped he would get to write that story. Shaw also said “I hope we’ll get to follow characters in this moment when Los Alamos goes from being the best kept secret in the world to being the most famous city on the planet.”

Release

Accolades

The series won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Design for the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards and also won the award for Excellence in Title Design at the 2015 South by Southwest festival. Justin Kirk received a nomination for the Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Guest Performer in a Drama Series for the 6th Critics’ Choice Television Awards.

Trivia

• The actors Katja Herbers and Ashley Zukerman, playing Helen and Charlie, are really a couple.
  • They fell in love on set.
• For the director/producer ‘Thomas Schlamme’, the visual pattern for the show when shooting the pilot is influenced by Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971).

Manhattan Series

• Series 01 (2014):
  • Episode 01: You Always Hurt the One You Love.
  • Episode 02: The Prisoner’s Dilemma.
  • Episode 03: The Hive.
  • Episode 04: Last Reasoning of Kings.
  • Episode 05: A New Approach to Nuclear Cosmology.
  • Episode 06: Acceptable Limits.
  • Episode 07: The New World.
  • Episode 08: The Second Coming.
  • Episode 09: Spooky Action at a Distance.
  • Episode 10: The Understudy.
  • Episode 11: Tangier.
  • Episode 12: The Gun Model.
  • Episode 13: Perestroika.

• Series 02 (2015):
  • Episode 01: Damnatio Memoriae.
  • Episode 02: Fatherland.
  • Episode 03: The Threshold.
  • Episode 04: Overlord.
  • Episode 05: The World of Tomorrow.
  • Episode 06: 33.
  • Episode 07: Behold the Lord High Executioner.
  • Episode 08: Human Error.
  • Episode 09: Brooklyn.
  • Episode 10: Jupiter.

Production & Filming Details

• Director(s):
  • Thomas Schlamme … (5 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Daniel Attias … (2 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Andrew Bernstein … (2 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Christopher Misiano … (2 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Julie Anne Robinson … (2 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Daniel Stern … (2 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Michael Uppendahl … (2 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Paris Barclay … (1 episode, 2014)
  • Simon Cellan Jones … (1 episode, 2014)
  • Bill D’Elia … (1 episode, 2014)
  • Rosemary Rodriguez … (1 episode, 2014)
  • Jennifer Getzinger … (1 episode, 2015)
  • Kimberly Peirce … (1 episode, 2015)
• Producer(s):
  • Dustin Thomason … executive producer / executive producer (23 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Julie DeJoie … producer (23 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • David Ellison … executive producer (23 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Thomas Schlamme … executive producer (23 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Sam Shaw … executive producer (23 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Dana Goldberg … executive producer (14 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Marcy Ross … executive producer (14 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Lisa Melamed … consulting producer (13 episodes, 2014)
  • Rebecca Moline … co-producer (13 episodes, 2014)
  • Iain Paterson … producer (13 episodes, 2014)
  • Tom Spezialy … consulting producer (13 episodes, 2014)
  • Jerry Kupfer … producer (10 episodes, 2015)
  • Mark Lafferty … co-producer (10 episodes, 2015)
  • Alexander Woo … consulting producer (10 episodes, 2015)
  • Andrew Balek … associate producer (9 episodes, 2015)
  • Stacey Jones … associate producer (3 episodes, 2015)
• Writer(s):
  • Sam Shaw … (created by) (23 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Sam Shaw … (written by) (6 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Noelle Valdivia … (story editor) (13 episodes, 2014)
  • Noelle Valdivia … (written by) (1 episode, 2014)
  • Gideon Yago … (story editor) (12 episodes, 2014)
  • Gideon Yago … (written by) (1 episode, 2014)
  • Lila Byock … (written by) (4 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Lila Byock … (staff writer) (3 episodes, 2015)
  • Mark Lafferty … (written by) (4 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Mark Lafferty … (executive story editor) (2 episodes, 2014)
  • Scott Brown … (staff writer) (3 episodes, 2015)
  • Scott Brown … (written by) (3 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Vinnie Wilhelm … (staff writer) (3 episodes, 2015)
  • Vinnie Wilhelm … (written by) (2 episodes, 2015)
  • Dustin Thomason … (written by) (4 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Ryan Harriss … (staff writer) (2 episodes, 2014)
  • Ryan Harriss … (2 episodes, 2014)
  • Tom Spezialy … (written by) (2 episodes, 2014)
  • Nathaniel Halpern … (written by) (1 episode, 2014)
  • Lisa Melamed … (written by) (1 episode, 2014)
  • Megan Ferrell Burke … (written by) (1 episode, 2015)
  • Alexander Woo … (written by) (1 episode, 2015)
• Music:
  • Jon Thor Birgisson … (13 episodes, 2014)
  • Alex Somers … (13 episodes, 2014)
  • Zoe Keating … (10 episodes, 2015)
  • Jeff Russo … (10 episodes, 2015)
• Cinematography:
  • Richard Rutkowski … (19 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • John Lindley … (2 episodes, 2014)
  • Jeffrey Greeley … (1 episode, 2015)
• Editor(s):
  • Trevor Baker … (6 episodes, 2014-2015)
  • Matthew Colonna … (5 episodes, 2014)
  • Rob Seidenglanz … (4 episodes, 2014)
  • Tad Dennis … (3 episodes, 2014)
  • Tom Wilson … (3 episodes, 2015)
  • Louise Innes … (2 episodes, 2015)
  • Scott Vickrey … (1 episode, 2015)
• Production:
  • BCD Travel (Travel Company)
  • Darkbloom Productions
  • Lionsgate Television
  • Shoe Money Productions
  • Skydance Media (Skydance Productions)
  • Skydance Television
  • Tribune Studios
• Distributor(s):
  • WGN America (United States, 2014)(TV)
  • DiziMax (Turkey)(Dizimax Drama, TV)
  • Epic Drama (Hungary, 2021)(TV)
  • Film1 (Netherlands, 2014)(limited, TV)
  • StudioCanal (Germany, 2016)(and Blu-ray, DVD)
• Release Date:
  • Series 01: 27 July 2014 to 19 October 2014.
  • Series 02: 13 October 2015 to 15 December 2015.
• Running time: 44-57 minutes.
• Rating: 15.
• Country: US.
• Language: English.

Video Clip(s)