Complex sentence: An American Scandal (2000), based on a relationship between Jefferson and Hemings; by contrast, twenty years earlier, a Jefferson biographer and a historian who was a direct descendant went to the president of CBS to convince him to drop a similar project.
Split into simpler sentences: An American Scandal (2000), which depicted a relationship between Jefferson and Hemings. By contrast, twenty years earlier, a Jefferson biographer and a historian who was a direct descendant convinced the president of CBS to drop a similar project.