The Mormons, Part 1

Did any of you see the 2 hour part 1 of the PBS Documentary that was on tonight?
I personally really liked it, and here are some of my thoughts.
I like the theme "How do you go from being the ultimate outcast to the embodiment of the mainstream?", which they started and finished with.
The portrayal of Joseph Smith I thought pretty fair and balanced. Even the Presbyterian theologian was talking about how drawn to it he was. It was kind of cool that they had Jeffrey R. Holland, Dallin H. Oaks, Truman G. Madsen, some Church historians, some President Hinckley clips, etc. mixed in with lots of historians, archeologists, poets, some ex guy who used to teach Seminary, etc. etc.
For all of my study of Joseph Smith I have a pretty well defined picture of him and his personality constructed in my mind, and they seemed to hit that in this work "The unendingly good and the unendingly by the book are not interesting, not inspiring... he came from a long tradition of proud religious nonconformity... a totally free religious environment with no control." The Joseph they portray gives you as many questions to think about as simple answers, he is gripped by questions and wants to find out more- in other words, he would never stand for such pseudoscripture we have invented in our Gospel Doctrine classes as "It isn't pertinent to your salvation."
They spent a good deal of time on the Mountain Meadows Massacre. It is interesting that we tell and re-tell the story of 17 of us being killed at Haun's Mill, but never tell (in fact tell newspapers lies blaming it on the Indians in 1858 and threaten to ex Juanita Brooks for writing a book about it 100 years later) the story of us killing 120 innocent people in cold blood at Mountain Meadows. That is human nature I guess, but it would be more useful to tell the latter story- in fact, make it lesson 24 in the annual manual 'The Dangers of Blind Unthinking Obedience: How 100 Mormons Lined Up and Shot Everyone Over 8 Years Old and Felt Okay About it because They Were Following the Leader.'
The polygamy portion was also interesting. It seems the issue is divided between those who think it evidences religious tyranny in the hands of patriarchs run amok "His sexual desire drove the practice... he had revalations of convenience justifying it" says some anti, to those who just wish that it would go away. I fall into neither camp. It remains our doctrine, for anyone who wants to look, that it is the eternal scheme of things (D&C 132, death of a spouse sealing rules, etc.). The fact that we call it "polygamy", and that Joseph married 10 women who were married to other men already, and the whole God-Mary-Joseph thing, and thoughts about my brother Ben and his fiancee and her new husband and all of that, and Joseph's view of sealing as being horizontal across the whole human family and not just vertical on genealogy only- all of this suggests to me that in heaven- where possessiveness and jealousy won't abide- things may be a little more like a radical free love community than we would think- but who knows?
Anyone, part 2 is on tomorrow night, there's a bunch of stuff on PBS.org, it is definitely worthwhile- and it was recommended on LDS World Report at Conference.