Yeah, I know, it’s "just a play." But like I keep saying, too many people — like this one — leave the theater thinking what they’ve just seen is an accurate portrayal of history, and then arrive at all kinds of wrong conclusions based on what they’ve just seen:
What brings Philo T. Farnsworth down, what causes him to lose out to the wily David Sarnoff, is that he believes that science should be done in the open. He’s stuck with a problem in implementing television, and he’s delighted to see a fellow engineer show up in San Francisco who wants to talk to him. But the engineer turns out to be an RCA employee who then returns to the East Coast and succeeds in transmitting a clear picture- something that Farnsworth had been unable to do.
Next person who tells me “it’s just a play” is going to get hit over the head with the heaviest history book I can get off my bookshelf. Remember what George Santayana said. You do know who he was, right? No, not the guy John Wayne defeated at the Alamo…