So if "John Adams" is successful enough for the TV powers that be, we could be in for copycat series, sequels and spin-offs. And when you consider that television has 42 other presidents to work with, there's plenty of grist for the dramatic mill.

And, for the sake of argument, let's take George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy off the table. Their lives and careers have been hashed over and dramatized repeatedly. And while we're at it, let's put aside Theodore Roosevelt, since Martin Scorsese is developing a biopic about him. The same goes for Harry Truman, since he's already been the subject of a miniseries and the one-man show "Give 'Em Hell, Harry," along with Richard Nixon, our very own Richard III.

That still leaves us with 35 presidents. If you only did one miniseries per year starting this year (including "John Adams"), you would finish in 2044. And, by then, we would already have at least four additional presidents to work with, and that would be in the unlikely event that all of the presidents between now and then serve two full terms.

Most obviously, "John Adams" has built-in sequel possibilities thanks to the fact that Adams' son, John Quincy Adams, also became president. He became the nation's chief executive in 1824, even though his opponent, Tennessee's Andrew Jackson, won the popular vote. Let's see ... son of a president, losing the popular vote to someone from Tennessee but becoming president anyway. Man, that's something you could never imagine happening again!

The first Adams was apparently not a fellow you would want to be stuck with during a long horse-and-buggy ride - according to the series, and many other sources, he was pedantic, morose and an all-around grump. So, if charisma and ebullience aren't necessary to getting the miniseries treatment, that should be good news for champions of Calvin Coolidge. He was such a stoic that, when he died, writer Dorothy Parker reportedly wondered how anyone could tell that he'd actually expired.

Pennsylvania's own James Buchanan was the only bachelor president America has had so far. He also usually lands near the top of the "worst president" lists thanks to his inaction in the build-up to the Civil War. But what could make a Buchanan miniseries particularly juicy is the long-standing speculation that Buchanan had a homosexual relationship with William Rufus King, Franklin Pierce's vice president. Take some debates over Dred Scott, add in a little bit of "Brokeback Mountain"-style forbidden love, and a Buchanan miniseries could be a hit for Logo, the gay and lesbian television network.

Grover Cleveland had exactly the opposite problem. He was dogged by allegations that he'd fathered an illegitimate child during his first run for the presidency, then married a woman almost 30 years his junior when he was in the White House. They ended up having five children together, the last of whom was born when Cleveland was 66. Considering it was well before Viagra, count me impressed.

And, when you consider the number of programs and infomercials dedicated to weight loss in the outer reaches of the cable spectrum, a miniseries dedicated to the extra-hefty chief executive William Howard Taft would have some contemporary relevance. It is, of course, a pity that Marlon Brando is no longer here to play Taft, but surely some other portly actor can be pulled out of summer stock somewhere and dramatize the struggles of the 1912 Republican Party split and getting in and out of the White House bathtub.

Finally, there's William Henry Harrison. He was only president for one month, in 1841, because of a fatal bout of pneumonia.

Now that definitely puts the "mini" in "miniseries."

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