Tuned In

The Kennedys Finds a Home, for Reelz

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You know the dynasty—now find the channel!

The Kennedys, the much-troubled miniseries about the much-troubled political clan, has finally found a channel to air it: ReelzChannel, a movie channel available in around 60 million cable homes. The eight-hour saga, from 24 co-creator Joel Surnow, was originally sold to History Channel but the network announced recently that it was going to pass on airing the show. At the time, the network cited concerns about the series’ historical accuracy, but there were also reports that members of the Kennedy family were lobbying against it.

Surnow is an outspoken Hollywood conservative, which had raised talk that the mini (starring Greg Kinnear and Katie Holmes) might be hostile to the Democratic dynasty—though there’s no more inherent reason to decide, sight unseen, that a conservative would make an unfair series than a liberal. [Update: In the Daily Beast, Jace Lacob shares some scenes from a script draft that seem, at the least, pretty salacious; The Hollywood Reporter, on the other hand, obtained a copy of the first episode and describes it as tamer than the leaked draft.]

I haven’t screened any of the series personally (it airs April 3), so I won’t prejudge, but at this point it certainly passes the curiosity test. If nothing else, I’m eager to see it—and to find out just where exactly Reelz is in my cable lineup.