What more, one well might wonder, could be asked of “America: The Story of Us,” a whiz-bang, high-tech documentary miniseries airing in six two-hour blocks starting at 9 p.m. Sunday on cable’s History Channel?

Actually, we don’t have to wonder, because it’s sometimes annoyingly obvious. Crucial scarcities include creative imagination, narrative eloquence and dramatic impact. Some measurable amount of conceptual sophistication would have been welcome, and a good deal less huffery, puffery and gimmickry.

What “America” could most use less of: cliches, trite little phrases that come at you like black balls from a musket, except that here those tend to come in slow motion, right at your face, when the guns are being fired ostensibly at the British by our valorous foreparents organized into — what else? — “a ragtag militia.” Slo-mo muskets are but part of a vast battery of special effects deployed to make this 12-part American history lesson visually distinctive and kinetically compelling, but snappy visuals should supplement a clever, eloquent script — not replace it.