There is no way now, with the fracturing of the audience, that a remade “Roots” (History, A&E, Lifetime, Lifetime Movie Network, 9 p.m.) could have the same impact the original did in 1977 — even if it’s showing on four cable networks at once, which it is. Yet it’s never a bad thing to be reminded of the brutality and original sin of a country that is still feeling its effect.
The new “Roots” is a strong one, in part because its leading man, the actor Malachi Kirby, playing a strong and educated Mandinka warrior as Kunta Kinte, who before the first of four two-hour episodes is over, has been captured by competing tribe and sold into slavery to Virginia. The awfulness of the passage, the inhumanity of sales and continued indignities of slavery are all vividly told, as Kirby tries to maintain his identity and particularly his own name.
The first episode has its share of familiar faces with Forest Whitaker doing particularly strong work as a fiddler who tries to guide his way. Also on tonight are James Purefoy, Matthew Goode and Derek Luke. Still to come on the next three nights: Anika Noni Rose, T.I., Mekhi Phifer and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Laurence Fishburne plays the narrating Alex Haley; LeVar Burton, who played the original Kinte