Contrary to what we all heard in the musical, the dawning of the age of Aquarius did not bring much in the way of "harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding".
The hippie dream shattered and upheaval came in spades: the war in Vietnam intensified, the US's inner cities exploded into riots and, out in the southern Californian desert, Charles Manson was gathering his "family" together.
This counter-cultural chaos forms the backdrop of Aquarius, a dark crime drama that first aired on M-Net last year and has now returned for a second and final season.
The first season began in 1967 Los Angeles, with David Duchovny as Sam Hodiak, a middle-aged and somewhat cynical detective trying to make sense of the changing world around him.
He's a stereotypically old-school cop who scoffs at such newfangled ideas that suspects don't have to answer questions and, in fact, must even be read their rights before being arrested. Normally, he'd just kick them in the groin and be done with it.
But it is to such cliched dinosaurs that the desperate turn to for help. In this case, it's the wife of a wealthy but dodgy Republican lawyer whose daughter, Emma (Emma Dumont), has disappeared. He soon discovers that she's run off to join Manson's commune.
Getting her out of there proved problematic for so strait-laced a detective, so a couple of hip, younger cops were roped in to do a bit of undercover work and at times it all seemed a bit too much like The Mod Squad crossed with Starsky and Hutch.
Even Manson (Gethin Anthony) seemed more cartoonish than evil.
Fortunately, all this changes in the second season - which starts, sort of at the end, with fast-forward flashes to August 9 1969 when Manson's followers raided the home rented by pregnant actress Sharon Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski, and slaughtered everyone there as part of a plan to start a racial war.
From there, though, it's back to early 1968, as Aquarius unpacks the series of events that led up to the Tate-LaBianca murders.
New characters are introduced, like Manson's Helter Skelter killers Patricia "Katie" Krenwinkel (Madisen Beaty) and Charles "Tex" Watson (Cameron Deane Stewart).
WATCH the trailer for Aquarius Season 2
Interestingly, after the death in 2009 of Manson gang member Susan "Sexy Sadie" Atkins, Krenwinkle and fellow gang member Leslie Van Houten became the longest incarcerated females in the California penal system. They remain in prison.
Manson had dreams of being a musician and for a while he hung out with Los Angeles pop stars. The Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson (Andy Favreau) gets a minor appearance for having the misfortune of briefly befriending Manson, believing he may have been a talented songwriter.
As for Hodiak, well, an anonymous mailer is sending him packages containing photographs of women, some of whom appear to be quite dead. At the same time, he's being investigated by internal affairs .
Another important new character is the fictional Ralph Church (Omar J Dorsey), a narcissistic grifter who seemingly taught Manson much about manipulation.
Their interactions apparently inform the latter's quest to start a race war. That, and a message hidden in Helter Skelter, from the Beatles' White Album. And before long, as they say, there's blood on the walls.
• 'Aquarius' Season 2 is on Netflix.
• This article was originally published in The Times.
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