Review of Download, Parts I and II

Clash of the titans, revenge of the nerds: That's the tone of the first two episodes of "Download," the Discovery Channel documentary series on the corporate history of the internet. Who knew you could swash and buckle through the history of the Information Age? Journalist John Heilemann pulls this off, making for fascinating documentary tv, a succinct and stirring story of wild guesses, missed opportunities, revenge, and then (ah, Greek tragedy!) demoralization if not demise. Microsoft is cast as the king with the tragic flaw in the first two episodes, which (to give away the plot) follow a bunch of altruistic and visionary scientists, led by Tim Berners-Lee, who invent the Web.  Mosaic becomes Netscape, the little guy.  They go up against the Goliath of Microsoft. It's fine as long as Bill Gates doesn't really understand what's all that important about the World Wide Web.  For the first time in his career, he misses the boat. For a while.  But then Microsoft realizes the mistake and becomes determined to crush Netscape and belatedly ride the "internet tidal wave." Laws? Rules? Best Practices? Not really. Muscle, might-makes-right, and an offer that it's very easy to refuse. And then the big trial, the most powerful businessman on the planet, a man used to calling even his friends "idiots," has to say to a congressional committee, over and over, "I don't recall that."  It's quite a spectacle, watching the footage of the congressional hearings, Bill Gates not making eye contact, his head slung low between his thin shoulders.

Hielemann argues it was all too much, all too humiliating, and led to Bill Gates eventually stepping down as head of Microsoft. But did the titan just slink away? Not on your life. He became even more powerful in a different realm, devoting himself to being the world's most important philanthropist. A different kind of victory, a different version of heroism.

Google is in the hot seat next. So much information, so little control. What does it mean that all that data is being mined. Even if the company motto is "Don't be evil," is there a way to avoid evil when you know too darn much? That question seems right out of a Nathaniel Hawthorne short story, and Hawthorne would answer, resoundingly, no: if you know that much private stuff about people's lives, about corporations, about who is connected to whom, something bad will happen, no matter what your corporate motto says. Knowledge is power and power leads easily to evil. Google-lovers, be warned!

Next up: Amazon.com and eBay. And then the fourth and final episode will look at how the internet has changed all our lives.  

It's gripping, it's informative, it's smart. Or, to sound more like the narration on Download: Gripping . . .Informative . . . Smart! Nothing superfluous, punchy and packs a punch. John Heilemann makes "algorithm" sound like "aphrodisiac." In Silicon Valley, it is.

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Here are the coordinates:

Discovery Channel, March 8, 1 5, 22, and 29 (7 pm or 11 pm).

PART 1—Browser Wars
The story of a battle between America’s mightiest corporation and a small group of computer geeks who’d created a revolutionary technology. It’s a battle that would involve the US government, create billions of dollars of wealth and change all our lives

PART 2—Search
A unique way of finding information revolutionized the Web & in the process created one of the largest companies in the US - Google. This is the story of how it happened.

PART 3—Bubble
Amazon and Ebay - the 2 titans of modern E-Commerce are each massively successful and incredibly different. Jeff Bezos & Pierre Omidyar tell the story of how their business grew form nothing to dominate the global economy and change the way we live our lives

PART 4—People Power
This is the story of the internet has changed society and how a new breed of entrepreneurs are shaping our digital futures.

You can also catch Download on The Science Channel: http://science.discovery.com/tv-schedules/series.html?paid=48.14998.25448.32270.2

More information on the show is available at http://science.discovery.com/tv/download/download.html