I’m enjoying the Apple TV+ production of Manhunt about the search for Lincoln’s assassin.

It gets a bit confusing at times with its zigzagging around in time, which normally I like, but this show overdoes it, I think.

Never mind. It gets more things right than not, and that’s what’s important. I saw some grousing from people comparing it to the book, but they don’t seem to understand the difference between a literary non-fiction work and a dramatic one. There’s a difference in the way that information is conveyed to the viewer, and sometimes it’s better to make a tiny factual error just to keep the story moving.

On the other hand, there were bits of historical details that the series got right that I really enjoyed. For example, when the assassin’s brother is referring to him, he calls him Wilkes. Because everyone did call him Wilkes.

Of course, it reminded me of “The Ballad of Booth” from John Weidman and Stephen Sondheim’s musical Assassins.

Here is a good performance of that song, and the only thing wrong with it is that it’s only the song; it doesn’t have John Weidman’s brilliant scene woven through it to help set the context. In the scene Booth comes across the Balladeer and makes him sing about events from Booth’s way of looking at them, which is why the Balladeer’s point of view changes abruptly.

In the end the Balladeer sums things up.

Listen to the stories.
Hear it in the songs.
Angry men
Don’t write the rules,
And guns don’t right the wrongs.

Here are Patrick Cassidy as the Balladeer and Victor Garber as Booth: