The Worst Episodes of American Experience
Every episode of American Experience ranked from worst to best. Explore the Worst Episodes of American Experience!
TV's most-watched history series brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.
Lowest Rated Episodes Summary
The worst episode of "American Experience" is "Roots of Resistance: The Story of the Underground Railroad", rated N/A/10 from 0 user votes. It was directed by N/A and written by N/A. "Roots of Resistance: The Story of the Underground Railroad" aired on 1/16/1990 and is rated NaN point(s) lower than the second lowest rated, "French Dance Tonight".
NaN/10 0 votes#1 - Roots of Resistance: The Story of the Underground Railroad
Season 2 Episode 16 - Aired 1/16/1990
Men and women, black and white, risked their lives to carve an elaborate network of escape routes out of slavery in the mid 1800s -- trails and backroads, safehouses, river crossings and night trains leading as far north as Canada. Disguises, secret rendezvous and special codes were used to guard the identity of "conductors" and their fugitive "passengers." But flight to free territory didn't guarantee freedom; fugitives could be hunted down and returned.
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#2 - French Dance Tonight
Season 3 Episode 10 - Aired 12/10/1990
When French settlers, exiled from Nova Scotia, migrated to Louisiana in the 1750s, they mixed with African Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, and others to create one of America's richest, most varied cultures. The film captures many of Cajun and Zydeco music's most important innovators and performers as they talk about the emergence of two musical traditions.
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#3 - Ishi: The Last Yahi Indian
Season 5 Episode 20 - Aired 12/2/1992
When "Ishi," the last surviving member of a small Indian tribe, walked into the small California town of Oroville in 1911, he became a media curiosity and scientific "specimen." The San Francisco Museum built a Yahi house where audiences could watch Ishi make arrowheads and shoot bows. Ishi went to the theater and received invitations of marriage. But contact would bring him terrible physical and psychological consequences.
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NaN/10 0 votes#4 - One Woman, One Vote (1)
Season 7 Episode 10 - Aired 1/23/1995
From Elizabeth Cady Stanton's electrifying call to arms at Seneca Falls in 1848, to the last battle for passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, a recounting of the infighting, the alliances and betrayals, defeats and victories on the way to winning the right to vote. The struggle split the suffragist movement into two opposing forces: the militants who faced imprisonment and riots and those who argued for a quieter, more persuasive ways. Both tactics, it turned out, were needed.
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#5 - One Woman, One Vote (2)
Season 7 Episode 11 - Aired 1/30/1995
From Elizabeth Cady Stanton's electrifying call to arms at Seneca Falls in 1848, to the last battle for passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, a recounting of the infighting, the alliances and betrayals, defeats and victories on the way to winning the right to vote. The struggle split the suffragist movement into two opposing forces: the militants who faced imprisonment and riots and those who argued for a quieter, more persuasive ways. Both tactics, it turned out, were needed.
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NaN/10 0 votes#6 - The Way West (1): Westward, the Course of Empire Takes Its Way (1845-1864)
Season 7 Episode 12 - Aired 5/8/1995
A six-hour documentary of how the West was lost and won, from the time of the Gold Rush in 1848 until after the last gasp of the Indian Wars at Wounded Knee in 1893, when the West was settled, subdued, exploited and incorporated into the American empire. Lakotas, Cheyennes, Kiowas, Poncas, Apaches, Nez Perces and Utes fought back, then watched as everything they had was taken from them, their way of life all but destroyed.
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#7 - The Way West (2): The Approach of Civilization (1865-1869)
Season 7 Episode 13 - Aired 5/9/1995
A six-hour documentary of how the West was lost and won, from the time of the Gold Rush in 1848 until after the last gasp of the Indian Wars at Wounded Knee in 1893, when the West was settled, subdued, exploited and incorporated into the American empire. Lakotas, Cheyennes, Kiowas, Poncas, Apaches, Nez Perces and Utes fought back, then watched as everything they had was taken from them, their way of life all but destroyed.
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#8 - The Way West (3): The War for the Black Hills (1870-1876)
Season 7 Episode 14 - Aired 5/16/1995
A six-hour documentary of how the West was lost and won, from the time of the Gold Rush in 1848 until after the last gasp of the Indian Wars at Wounded Knee in 1893, when the West was settled, subdued, exploited and incorporated into the American empire. Lakotas, Cheyennes, Kiowas, Poncas, Apaches, Nez Perces and Utes fought back, then watched as everything they had was taken from them, their way of life all but destroyed.
Director: N/A
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- NaN/10 0 votes
#9 - The Way West (4): Ghost Dance (1877-1893)
Season 7 Episode 15 - Aired 5/17/1995
A six-hour documentary of how the West was lost and won, from the time of the Gold Rush in 1848 until after the last gasp of the Indian Wars at Wounded Knee in 1893, when the West was settled, subdued, exploited and incorporated into the American empire. Lakotas, Cheyennes, Kiowas, Poncas, Apaches, Nez Perces and Utes fought back, then watched as everything they had was taken from them, their way of life all but destroyed.
Director: N/A
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NaN/10 0 votes#10 - Vietnam: A Television History (7): Vietnamizing the War
Season 9 Episode 16 - Aired 6/30/1997
"Vietnam: A Television History": The gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops and their replacement by the South Vietnamese are recalled in "Vietnamizing the War (1968-73)." But morale was low among Americans still in the country, and veterans interviewed recall racial divisions and the availability of drugs.
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NaN/10 0 votes#11 - Vietnam: A Television History (8): Cambodia and Laos
Season 9 Episode 17 - Aired 7/7/1997
America's involvement in—and secret bombing of—Cambodia and Laos are chronicled as "Vietnam: A Television History" continues. After the bombing halt in August 1973, the Communist Khmer Rouge advanced on the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, and finally, in April 1975, the city fell.
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NaN/10 0 votes#12 - Vietnam: A Television History (9): Peace is at Hand
Season 9 Episode 18 - Aired 7/14/1997
"Vietnam: A Television History": "Peace Is at Hand (1968-73)" recalls the peace negotiations in Paris, including Henry Kissinger's "secret" talks with Le Duc Tho. As the talks dragged on, the U.S. stepped up air attacks.
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NaN/10 0 votes#13 - Vietnam: A Television History (10): Homefront USA
Season 9 Episode 19 - Aired 7/21/1997
"Vietnam: A Television History - Homefront U.S.A.," traces the widening rift between supporters and opponents of the war, from the first demonstrations in the mid-1960s to the May 1970 Kent State shootings.
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NaN/10 0 votes#14 - Vietnam: A Television History (11): The End of the Tunnel
Season 9 Episode 20 - Aired 7/28/1997
"Vietnam: A Television History" concludes with "The End of the Tunnel," which recalls the 1973 Paris accords and the subsequent collapse of South Vietnam. Included: vivid footage of helicopter evacuations in Saigon during the final hours before the Communists took the city on April 30, 1975.
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#15 - T.R.: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt (3): The Good Fight
Season 9 Episode 30 - Aired 10/7/1996
TR is just 46 years old when he is inaugurated as president. He builds the Panama Canal, wins the Nobel Prize for Peace, and combatively introduces widesweeping social reforms. As his presidency draws to a close, TR names his best friend, Secretary of War William Howard Taft, as his successor. Taft wins the 1908 election.
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#16 - T.R.: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt (4): Black Care
Season 9 Episode 31 - Aired 10/7/1996
TR opposes his old friend Taft for the 1912 Republican nomination. When Taft wins, TR runs for president with his own Progressive Party. Despite enormous popular support, he loses to Democrat Woodrow Wilson. TR, now 55, retreats to the jungles of Brazil for two years for what becomes the most harrowing expedition of his life. His four sons join the World War I effort; shatters TR. Nearly six months later, he dies in his sleep at Sagamore Hill.
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NaN/10 0 votes#17 - Mr. Miami Beach
Season 10 Episode 4 - Aired 2/2/1998
Recalling the life of Carl Fisher, the entrepreneur who “sold the glamour of Florida” and turned a swampland into Miami Beach. Included: how he developed the resort town using topsoil from the Everglades and sand from Biscayne Bay.
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NaN/10 0 votes#18 - MacArthur (2): The Politics of War
Season 11 Episode 9 - Aired 5/18/1999
The conclusion of "MacArthur" focuses on his "return" to the Philippines in 1944, his years as Supreme Allied Commander in Japan after the war and his controversial command in Korea. Interviewed: onetime MacArthur aide Alexander Haig; historian David McCullough
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NaN/10 0 votes#19 - Death and the Civil War
Season 24 Episode 8 - Aired 9/18/2012
With the coming of the Civil War, and the staggering casualties it ushered in, death entered the experience of the American people as it never had before -- permanently altering the character of the republic and the psyche of the American people. Contending with death on an unprecedented scale posed challenges for which there were no ready answers when the war began. Americans worked to improvise new solutions, new institutions, and new ways of coping with death on an unimaginable scale.
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NaN/10 0 votes#20 - JFK (Part 1)
Season 25 Episode 7 - Aired 11/11/2013
A two-part profile of John F. Kennedy begins with his early years, detailing the health challenges he faced; his heroism after his PT boat was hit by an enemy destroyer during World War II; his first run for Congress; and the 1960 presidential race, which featured the first televised presidential debates. Among those sharing insights are his sister Jean Kennedy Smith and niece Kathleen Kennedy Townsend; presidential biographers Robert A. Caro and Robert Dallek; and historian David Nasaw.
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NaN/10 0 votes#21 - JFK (Part 2)
Season 25 Episode 8 - Aired 11/12/2013
Conclusion. John F. Kennedy's White House years, including the Bay of Pigs fiasco; Cuban Missile Crisis; handling of civil rights; and decision to travel to Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, to shore up support for the 1964 election. The successes and failures of his tenure in office are also weighed by Kennedy administration officials John Seigenthaler, Thomas Hughes and Harris Wofford; civil-rights leaders Andrew Young and Julian Bond; and journalists Evan Thomas and Richard Reeves.
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NaN/10 0 votes#22 - Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
Season 26 Episode 4 - Aired 2/11/2014
The story of outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, whose turn-of-the-century exploits made headlines, led them to be pursued by Pinkerton detectives and inspired the popular 1969 film starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
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NaN/10 0 votes#23 - The Rise and Fall of Penn Station
Season 26 Episode 5 - Aired 2/18/2014
The story of New York's Pennsylvania Station, which opened to the public in 1910. One of the greatest architectural and engineering achievements of its time, it covered nearly eight acres and required the construction of 16 miles of underground tunnels. It closed its doors some 50 years later, giving way to Madison Square Garden, a high-rise office building and sports complex.
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NaN/10 0 votes#24 - Walt Disney (2)
Season 27 Episode 9 - Aired 9/15/2015
In 1966, the year Walt Disney died, 240 million people saw a Disney movie, 100 million tuned in to a Disney television program, 80 million bought Disney merchandise, and close to seven million visited Disneyland. Few creative figures before or since have held such a long-lasting place in American life and popular culture.
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NaN/10 0 votes#25 - American Comandante
Season 27 Episode 10 - Aired 11/17/2015
When William Morgan was executed outside a Havana prison on March 11, 1961, his strange story seemed to vanish from the popular imagination as quickly as it had appeared; it was lost in the classified archives of the Cold War and edited out of Cuban history by Fidel Castro’s retelling of the revolution.
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