I finally got around to seeing all 10 episodes of Amazon’s new series on the life of Hugh Hefner (American Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story.) You’ll no doubt remember that I’d greatly looked forward to seeing this series but watched the first couple episodes with only sort of meh enjoyment (see “New Amazon series chronicles life of Hefner”). I stuck with it (difficult as that was… wink) and was glad I did. In all the complete package is worth your investment despite my initial misgivings.

There’s really nothing new here, other than the History Channel-styled dramatization of real-life photos mixed with reenactments. (Again, it’s more History Channel than Ken Burns.) It’s obvious to me that this series was meant to be released in about 1992, as that’s where most of the interviews end and the last quarter century or so of Hefner’s life (during which time some interesting things occurred) is sort of glossed over. Actually there are plenty of things that are sort of glossed over, but alas the series is only six and a half hours long. (The same Hugh Hefner is said to have once tried to write an autobiography but abandoned the project because he simply had too much to include. His personal scrapbook, for which he owns a Guinness World Record, is something like 2,500 volumes.)

If you’ve got time to invest (and who doesn’t in 2017 when you can watch nearly anything on demand?) I recommend American Playboy. Thanks, Amazon, for once again just making my life that much better.