Not unlike a lot of actors, Jonathan Adams usually lets go of performance the minute the he's done filming.

But, he says, there's something special about his current television show, NBC's "American Dreams" (Sundays, check local listings), that keeps him tuning in every week.

For one, he can follow the series' multiple storylines and secondly, as an actor who performed in regional theater in Seattle, Kansas City, Mo., and Milwaukee, he now has the benefit of instant replay.

"As a stage actor I was critiquing myself all the time, but I never got to see actually what I was doing," Adams told me in a recent interview. "I would just get what the audience, what the reaction of the audience was. With this I get to break it down and see exactly how that choice made a difference in how the show went."

"American Dreams" chronicles the lives of the Pryor family (Tom Verica, Gail O'Grady, Brittany Snow and Will Estes) in Philadelphia during the cultural and political upheaval of the 1960s. Adams plays Henry Walker on the show, an employee in Jack Pryor's (Verica) electronics store, who is struggling to give his family a better life.

Meanwhile, Henry's son, Sam (Arlen Escarpeta) continues at East Catholic High School on his track scholarship and is caught between his father's ideals and the new civil rights struggles of the decade.

Unlike his character on the show, Adams wasn't a father in the 1960s -- in fact, he was just a young boy and barely has any memories of the era. But to stay grounded in his role, he's done some serious studying.

"I read about it and watch documentaries all of the time," Adams said. "It's really odd, I think there's been so much written about this point in history, its such a fascinating time, and so much done and you can basically toss a brick in the library and you'd hit something about the '60s. We were at the brink of so many things and we took so many different strides forward, it was like America's adolescence."

As for playing a family man, Adams, a native of Pittsburgh, said it wasn't difficult to fathom because he believes families throughout time have had many of the same wants and needs.

"It could be sixth century B.C., or it could be 1066, but you'd still want the same things -- that's what I found out when I was doing a lot of Shakespeare," Adams explained. "Even though there are different things about the world -- different technology and social morals -- what people want is all basically the same. You want your family to do better, you want yourself to do better, and you want love and you want to give love. That's how you live your life and that's what you do."

Plus, Adams says, he just loves watching classic rock and pop songs come to life. "American Dreams" is essentially set to a soundtrack of the era with recreations of performances of "American Bandstand." The classic singers are even played by today's hottest musical stars.

"I'm envious of the people who get to spend all day picking that music, because they get to spend all day, just listening to all these great old '60s groups, even if they haven't heard them before," Adams said, laughing.

"It's 1965 now in the show, and we just had Jennifer Love Hewitt playing Nancy Sinatra doing "These Boots Were Made for Walkin.'" Adams continued. "I was thinking to myself, 'This must have been amazing when this woman came on with that miniskirt and those go-go boots.' It must have just blown people away who had grown up in before that time."