I'll start this review by saying I am not a Mormon. I did recently talk to a couple of their missionaries and while I find the religion interesting I ultimately chose not to leave my church. While babysitting my nephew I came across the 3rd part of this series on the BYU channel that I don't have in my own cable package. I watched for a bit, but since it was not the story from the beginning I decided to turn it off, start from the beginning, and I ordered this dvd since it was on sale for like $4.I was pleasantly surprised. I found the depictions of the characters to be fairly realistic. I generally do not like any form of Christian entertainment if it is written by Christians, since they tend to avoid the bad language and activities that people who are either not religious or whom are going through a crisis might use/engage in. To me this pulls me out of the stories. A prime example of this is the first book in the left behind series which uses the phrase "opinions are like egos, everyone has one" which was uttered by an adulterous pilot. A christian author will usually not use profanity in a book which depicts a character who would. I find it distracting.That being said, I didn't get the sense that the LDS was beating the theology over my head or shoving Joseph Smith as American Moses down my throat. The prophet was shown to be a regular man, and the people around him distrusted him, though him a liar, physically attacked him, etc. Families are torn about whether to trust this man, or write him off as a lunatic or a man deceived by the devil. These are realistic responses to someone who claims to be visited by angels and be in possession of a secret book he can't show anyone.So regardless if you are a member of the LDS or Community of Christ or not, if you want to know a little about the history of the church and its people, what times were like in America back then, then check this out. Not all the characters are historical, the main family it follows is a fictional one, but it still gives some realistic representations. Its adult enough to keep a regular secular audience entertained, and its still family friendly enough to be able to watch this with kids. I liked it enough to want to order the rest of them, and I might actually just pick up the books they are based off of.