The HISTORY Channel’s The Mega-Brands That Built America gets bigger with Season 3, Episode 6, “Photo Bombs,” which explores the Polaroid vs. Kodak rivalry that kickstarted amateur photography. It’s an episode that opens up so much to talk about, and simply can’t get all of it into 43 minutes.

“Photo Bombs” discusses the advances that Kodak made in the photography world, and how Polaroid founder Edwin Land was able to improve upon their work out of left field, going from making polarized lenses (thus the name) to cameras. Like so many other stories in the business world, this is one of two major egos coming into conflict with one another. Whomever decides the episode order at HISTORY and/or Omaha Productions gets some brownie points, because there’s a bittersweet continuity between this episode and “Rise of the Office Machines.”

In that prior episode, two companies that could have been allies (IBM and Xerox) wound up becoming bitter rivals because of shortsightedness. In this episode, Kodak and Polaroid actually do have a successful business relationship, but that then gets torpedoed by similar shortsightedness. Part of the appeal of “Photo Bombs” is the compare and contrast between these two storylines, which wouldn’t be possible if the two episodes hadn’t aired in subsequent weeks. Regular The Mega-Brands That Built America viewers will still remember enough of the Xerox vs. IBM story to connect the dots and enhance their understanding of Polaroid vs. Kodak.

The struggle that “Photo Bombs” faces is to get the audience to care about the history of personal cameras when technology has largely passed them by. Viewers will be acutely aware that everything discussed in the episode is now in second place to digital photography and phone cameras, especially when the Instagram logo plays a small but pivotal part in the episode. The creative team does a fine job in the opening act of explaining why the audience should care: not because this is the cutting edge of technology, but because of the impact that these two companies had on American culture. There’s an idea of photography providing a sort of empowerment to people that fans won’t have considered.

With that in mind, the episode does well to showcase both the triumphs and failures of each company, as both of them went through several models and long development phases to get where they were ultimately trying to go. There’s nothing quite as funny or memorable as the unexpected fires from the history of Xerox, but there is a sort of dry humor in realizing just how hard it used to be to take a picture. The episode doesn’t just explain the early history of photography; it points out how ridiculous it was. That relatable context is what makes this entire series memorable.

“Photo Bombs” is practically pleading for a second part, however, because a lot is compacted into the final ten minutes. Without giving the details away, the show quickly summarizes the fates of both companies, and only briefly touches on how Polaroid cameras are making a comeback. (The MLB’s San Diego Padres are one example of how Polaroid photos are still charmingly relevant.) There’s even an Apple mention that just makes it seem so easy to connect this story back to the previous episode. It would be fascinating to continue following the rise of digital photography, and tell the complete story in a chronological sense.

But there’s not appropriate room for that within a 43-minute broadcast window. The Mega-Brands That Built America does what it can with the time that it has, telling a focused story as it usually does, by zeroing in on one or two important figures at different companies. Audiences will come away more educated, which is the reward of this entire show. And if it inspires them to keep pulling that thread and doing some of their own research, all the better.

The Mega-Brands That Built America airs Sundays at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on HISTORY. Episodes from all three seasons are also streaming on the HISTORY app, history.com and on demand. Photo Credit: A&E Television Networks/Lucky8, courtesy of the HISTORY Channel.

Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.