When Holocaust was first broadcast on American network TV in 1978, it was billed as something beyond a mere miniseries—this was an event. It certainly was epic—now out on DVD for the first time, it’s a sprawling seven-hour-plus melodrama, the fictional tale (set amid historical fact) about two intertwining families in Germany, one Jewish, one Gentile.One of the first things you notice is the cast, which could easily put a ’70s disaster movie to shame. Joseph Bottoms, Ian Holm, Michael Moriarty, Sam Wanamaker and Nigel Hawthorne all appear, but the standouts are Meryl Streep and a baby-faced James Woods, who are the centrepiece of the series. There are certainly some more-than-competent scenes in Holocaust, and it was made prior to the Hollywood studios’ fixation with the topic. But it was made for cynical reasons; it came but one year after the ratings bonanza of Roots, which dealt with the American history of slavery.

It remains worth seeing, if at times one gets the sinking sense the entire genocide has been mainstreamed. Apparently, this series’ glossy veneer was so off-putting to French filmmaker Claude Lanzmann that it inspired him to make the epic documentary miniseries Shoah (1985)—a nine-hour film that told tales of the Holocaust through oral history without one frame of archival footage.

If that doesn’t bring you down enough, you can check out Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story, a doc made by Montreal expats Patty Kim and (former Mirror news editor) Chris Sheridan. Years after their 13-year-old daughter disappears, two Japanese parents learn that she had in fact been kidnapped by spies who took her to North Korea, where she was to teach people to speak Japanese. It’s as strange—and horrific—as it sounds, as the family learn that this was part of a larger campaign, and that there are a number of Japanese living anonymous lives in North Korea. The families’ quest for knowledge and justice is as sad as it is fascinating.