Stephen Fry in America (2008) User Reviews

Fascinating, witty, and sometimes banal

[csgollum · 7/10 · 15 May 2016]

America is a huge country and would take years to cover, even if one were to only spend a day in each major city or town. I'm sure there are people who have travelled nomad-style throughout the length and breadth of the country, but I am yet to hear of anybody who has done that and documented his/her experiences for others to watch. Fry does cover a few places which are renowned for some particular reason, but as he repeats in a few episodes, what he is after is the "heart" of the city or state, not the parts that have been popularised by Hollywood. This could mean a particular geographical or man-made landmark, food, occupation, or a native who has made it big.

As one reviewer puts it, the series covers "voodoo in New Orleans, witchcraft in Massachusetts, and homelessness in St. Louis", all quirks or shortcomings. But that is exactly how people around the world picture these places. For example, India is still portrayed in Europe and the West in general as a land of cow worshippers, snake charmers, and spicy curry. But Stephen Fry covers not just these well known spots but also less well known places and he does it in his trademark witty bantering style.

Finally, to me, a bookworm who has only read about and seen America in movies and TV shows, this series is a fascinating peek into the country, which in a short period of time (when compared to countries like India, home to ancient civilizations) has achieved so much.

State Hopping

[Rindiana · 7/10 · 26 September 2010]

Immensely entertaining six-part trip through all the U.S. states hosted with likable wit by Stephen Fry.

Maybe it's all slightly too arbitrarily episodic and missing some edginess, but as an easy-going travelogue featuring colorful and interesting snippets of what the United States are all about, of nature and culture, of people and their stories, this rates as a well-made, joyfully British journey without pretensions towards epic grandeur.

Just follow your jocular tour guide Mr. Fry and you're in safe hands for sure.

7 out of 10 travel taxis

not a fan of Fry, but i love this. A great view of the USA

[dfppile · 9/10 · 23 January 2016]

I'm not a fan of Fry, but I like this series. I'm not American or English. I think some American's have taken this too seriously, judging by the reviews here.

After watching Long Way Round, Long Way Down, By Any Means, The Man Who Cycled the America, and just about every other travel TV series I had run out of options. I was put off by some of the review here, but took the dive anyway.

Yes, there is some focus on poor towns, socio-economic issues, brothels and so on, but it's quite tongue-in-cheek. I can't imagine how some here have taken this series as a stab at American culture. It shows some bad stuff, in a funny way, and no one should think that Fry is seriously trying to portray all of the USA as a brothel. Again, I'm not American of English, and can see this for what it is... a glimpse of the USA with a sense of humor.

What's more, there are delightful positive highlights, especially in the sections showing Montana and other natural beauties. In fact, having been to a couple of the places myself (deep south, rocky mountains, etc) I found those sections I was familiar with to be close to my feelings of the places. Also I've lived in San Francisco, and while he only hits the tourist spots, his views of the place are interesting and reliable. And lets face it, Miami really is an uninspiring place! Should we be offended when he says it?

With that in mind, when Fry takes us to places I haven't seen before, I have fuller confidence in his view. Again, you can't take it too seriously, but really, there is some amazing nature shown here, and he gets into peoples lives, talks to some regular, and some irregular people, going beyond the standard travel documentary.

Entertaining and interesting.

[mark_g_1 · 10/10 · 17 November 2008]

I love Stephen fry anyway but seeing him trecking around America in his black cab and the peoples reactions to him (a well spoken dapper English gentleman) is funny and magical to watch, he does travel across all of the 50 states of America, its nice to see how beautiful America really is. He meets all kinds of people who have strange but interesting jobs as well as giving a small history lesson about each state delivered as only Stephen fry can, he also meets some celebrities too on his journey, Sting and Morgan Freeman to name a couple, my only complaint is that they could have made more it feels like he hasn't had enough time to show off all off the states and the cities within them he visits but still 10/10 :)

Outstanding Series

[steve_mclaughlin2 · 10/10 · 18 January 2012]

Thought this was a very honest view of America, the good, the bad, the ugly and the majestic. I'm sure people will complain their state wasn't portrayed correctly, especially in the upper Mid West, that they decided to visit their region in January. Fry has some great lines throughout adding humor along the way as well as candid conversations on more serious subjects. Only wish they went slower and had more episodes. And also a summary at the end with his opinions concerning his visit.

Fry a great comedian could have poked fun at everything he saw, but didn't, just an honest portrayal of how a visitor views America driving around in his black cab. 10/10

The new British Oscar Wilde

[pfarley_99_1999 · 25 September 2011]

Wonderful series. I enjoyed everything about it with the exception of the study of cadavers - I skipped over that chapter. Mr. Fry was witty and well spoken and educational to boot. I laughed at the part when he was driving next to a cemetery and said that this 'must be the dead center of town'. I recommend this series for the whole family with the exception of the cadaver study - please skip over that (hit the next chapter button) - yuk - celebrate life please. It seems odd to me that a man with such wit and intelligence does not enjoy dancing, skiing, or 'fun' as he stated it. Mr. Fry must of been raised in a serious home. I give it a 8 out of ten. Thank you so much Mr. Fry!

Stephen Fry tells Brits and Americans about the U.S.

[Red-125 · 9/10 · 9 February 2019]

Stephen Fry in America (2008) is a BBC television mini-series. It was directed by John-Paul Davidson (4 episodes) and Michael Waldman (2 episodes).

Fry--who is a great actor-- travels by a London taxi to all 48 continental U.S. states, and then visits Alaska and Hawaii. Most Americans haven't visited all 50 states. And, of course, even fewer British people have accomplished this feat.

The point is not just so that Fry can say he's done it. He attempts to give us a sense of the country and its people. His team had the knack of finding some very interesting events, such as a society fundraiser in Houston. (I've never seen wealth so prominently displayed.) He also visited a Italian-American social club in New York City and a grand mansion in Newport, Rhode Island. (A matron there tells him, "I was at the Bouvier-Kennedy wedding. It was just Jackie Bouvier's wedding--not really that important.")

I truly enjoyed this series, and I learned quite a bit about my own country. Some things were good, and some were terrible, but that's the American reality.

Because these episodes were made for TV, they work well on the small screen. This movie has an extremely strong IMDb rating of 8.0. Absolutely right. It's worth finding it and seeing it.

Foreign perspective

[garymathe-76173 · 7/10 · 15 July 2019]

If you don't like Fry, you'll hate this. I like Fry, although he's not even on my top 20 list of British comedians. His style, for better or worse, is what makes this series different from the dozens of other travelogues out there. It's more Top Gear (the old one) than Parts Unknown. Only slightly funny but fairly informative and quite fun. It shows the weirder aspects of America, from the perspective of a foreigner who is brutally honest. At an Auburn football games he says "America is simultaneously preposterous, incredibly laughable, impressive, charming, ridiculous, expensive, overpopulated, wonderful, American." If you even slightly agree, you'll like this.

We can thank Michael Palin for another Brit 'discovering' the world

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 3 August 2013]

The series follows Stephen Fry as he drives a black London taxicab in every state of the US. (He does leave it in Seattle as he goes to Alaska and Hawaii.) That's the hook. It's not really an in-depth travelogue. Many states get the rushed treatment. Mostly, he picks 1 or 2 people or groups to interview every state. Sometimes they're famous, sometimes they're homeless, but mostly they represent something that Stephen want to highlight from the states.

I like Stephen Fry. I'm not a huge fan, but I've seen him in many different things and he's good in all of them. He's got a big presence and not just in girth. My biggest complaint is that he complains about too many things. Sometimes, he's not discovering America as much as he's making a social commentary about America. Nevertheless, there's a lot of good slice of life and some truly funny moments.

Stephen Fry skewers America and Americans

[Bernie-56 · 6/10 · 28 November 2009]

'Stephen Fry in America' could be regarded as a modern version of Fanny Trollope's 'Domestic Manners of the Americans'. It looks like a pleasant travelogue conducted by a witty and urbane Englishman and superficially it is. However Mr Fry skewers Americans as only a cultured Englishman can. Behind superb photography and a disarming manner we see how ghastly much of middle USA is. It was filmed when the weather was at its worst, doubtless deliberately. Drizzle, driving rain, and muddy roads combined with small-town USA create a dispiriting, even depressing, effect. The evening dance for elderly Jewish retirees in Miami was jaw-dropping. Truly ghastly.

Ohio is not just the Kent State massacre

[msidner-58205 · 3/10 · 17 August 2019]

Discussing Ohio only on the standpoint of the Kent State massacre is considerably unfair. Ohio is four major metropolitan areas full of diverse cultures. Definitely need to get a bit more perspective, not that I think you will.

Glib, superficial, and snobbish

[randomjetship · 3/10 · 11 August 2013]

Imagine a tour through Great Britain focusing on chavs, gypsies, and soccer hooligans and you more or less get the sense of how this series approaches the United States. The English have a weird fascination with the extremities of American culture. This brand of voyeurism is, I suspect, born from post-imperial insecurities, and the wry pretension Fry oozes during his tour though the 50 states fits squarely into that mold. Fry begins by telling us that he was very nearly born an American, and that the goal of his journey is to better understand the life he might have had. Instead, we see a man trying desperately to convince himself that he was lucky to be born an Englishman. That would explain the pejorative slant that marks his dismissive plodding through urban blight, gawking at rural squalor, and dilettantish dabbling in local trades and customs. Focusing on the downside of a subject isn't bad on its own, but Fry does so without any motivating theme to justify it. The result is a snide, mean-spirited little series that does not offer any particularly useful insights into the places Fry visits.

Another deep inadequacy comes from the superficial treatment Fry gives the places he visits and people who show him hospitality. In many of the states he supposedly visits we never see evidence that he ever leaves his quaint London-style cab. His pass through Delaware, for instance, exhibits all the depth that state received in Wayne's World ("Hi... we're in Delaware"). Yes, the goal of visiting all 50 states necessarily means that each one gets limited treatment, but some don't even get a perfunctory effort, and when states do get considerable screen time they are defined by their quirks or their shortcomings—voodoo in New Orleans, witchcraft in Massachusetts, and homelessness in St. Louis, for example.

In the end, the show does not succeed on the terms Fry himself sets for it, and it offers the audience very little else.

Not my United States

[stroh-24762 · 3/10 · 20 November 2019]

Why Mr. Fry? Why did you come over here? Why did you not come with an open mind? You admit that you despise fun, that explains choosing a "body farm" and parole hearings. Where did you get that Voodoo as a predominant religion of the area? I wish you had been born here, you may have given a more accurate protrayal of the colony that got away.

"Refined" Brits Can Be Quite Rude

[simplekitten · 5/10 · 27 February 2017]

Having watched dozens of travelogues about America, I can only say that this one has a pretty mean edge. Sure, everyone likes to see obscure places that are not the subject of the local tourism ads. No one wants to watch Disney-style travel shows. Even his visits to Angola prison, covering a burn-out homeless "hotel" in the ghetto, and showing off the best of Minnesota in January could be forgiven on this account. However, many of his social comments are intentional, thinly-veiled nasty digs, and they ruin what could otherwise be a top show in this genre.

It was very hard to watch him make fun of the interesting, warm-hearted people who invited him into their missile silo. That part would have been excellent if he had simply resisted the urge to throw in his hideous final comments. Watching the cheese farm segment was truly excruciating. Here's an interesting subject that was ruined by Fry's diatribe, as he repeatedly expressed his disgust for American-made cheese while his shocked cheese-making hostess wondered how a Brit could could ever get that flipping rude.

Does he really think this represents America??

[jordanhorse-942-224930 · 1/10 · 8 March 2014]

I was looking forward to this series however, it wasn't funny, wasn't informative and when he did show the wonderful side of our states he followed it up with a mocking slant. Really, he couldn't find anything good about Florida besides the Everglades? He totally focused on the city of Miami. Nothing about its ethnic diversity , nothing about its history. Nothing about the largest coral reef in America. He goes to Alabama and can only find the Prison and parole system the only thing that might interest people. Or the college football team? Really? Oh, wait, let's talk about the hunters in NY or the body farm? Is that really America? This is the worst documentary on America I have ever seen. No wonder people hate us. Don't come back! Or if you do don't look so hard to find subjects that demean us.

Disappointing.

[p-chandarana · 3/10 · 8 March 2017]

I do agree with others here in finding this Stephen Fry documentary unnecessarily glib towards other people's roots and culture. As an Englishman currently living in New York, I can certainly say there are extremes and quirks in all countries but the need to end most segments in the show with hurtful commentary just took away what could have been a programme about adventure and discovery.

Superficial and supercilious

[davethemathtutor · 3/10 · 24 February 2016]

I get the feeling I'm supposed to know who this Stephen Fry guy is. But to me he's just some pudgy English fellow who somehow managed to land this gig driving around the U.S. from state to state, pausing long enough in each to deliver some remarkably unremarkable observations about American life. His "uber-smart charm" is touted on the DVD package, but comments like "Americans often identify a place by its being east or west of the Mississippi River" strike me as pretty banal, and when he expresses amazement (in Wisconsin) that a water bottle left out overnight in sub-zero temperatures is frozen hard by morning, that seems downright dumb.

Some of the things he omits to mention are pretty startling too. When he passes through Clarksdale, Mississippi, he waxes rhapsodic about the astonishing number of great blues musicians who hailed from there— and neglects to name a single one of them. (Wikipedia says that John Lee Hooker, Earl Hooker, Son House, Sam Cooke, Junior Parker, and Ike Turner were born there; W.C. Handy, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and Howlin' Wolf all either lived or worked there at some time in their lives; and Bessie Smith died there.) No state escapes without some shallow, superficial commentary.

Not only is Fry superficial, he's supercilious as well, dismissing the great majority of what he encounters with a superior air and an endless stream of subtle and not-so-subtle put-downs. In New Orleans at Mardi Gras, while everyone around him is partying like mad and having a blast, he remarks that "fun" is a word that "makes me shiver with revulsion." In another state, when a couple who have invited him into their home give him an impromptu homemade serenade with a guitar and a recorder, he says (out of their hearing, of course) that it is the type of event that "makes my blood run cold." If those are examples of his charm, I'd hate to see him when he's being an obnoxious twit.

All in all: Fry goes some interesting places, sees some interesting scenery, meets some interesting people, does some interesting things, and makes a lot of uninteresting remarks about all of it.

Average

[coles_notes · 5/10 · 14 August 2023]

A quite massive fan of Stephen Fry and a person with lived experience in America, I set out expecting to love this 6-part miniseries by the BBC. Following Fry as he travels in his black London cab across all 50 states of the America, what we end up with was certainly enjoyable, if not alone for the host's wit and smug charm, but much too quick to spend any real time representing all 50 states. Many of the states of course receive less than a minute segment, although for Iowa he did bring up corn, Kirk, and the Field of Dreams so tbf he pretty much covered it, however it seems the show also looked a bit into the extreme with the individuals / topics its covered, from visiting a high security prison to attending a rodeo. Again I much looked forward to hearing Fry and his external opinions on the nation, especially around some of these expected stereotypes from abroad, however we never have the time to dig into anything philosophical and rather have the host too often looking down on those he interacts with, with a sort "haha look at these sad, funny Americans" vibe, which I completely understand, but didn't love. Was fine, but wouldn't necessarily recommend unless you really love Fry.