(no subject)

[essayel]

I'm doing my ironing and watching "Bonekickers". It's fun. Adrien Lester is gorgeous, and so is Hugh Bonneville. But Dr Mark Horton, Archaeological advisor, should be jolly well ashamed of himself.

Comments

[yakalskovich]

Why? Is he doing it wrong?

[essayel.livejournal.com]

He's perpetuating the myth that archaeologists are like Indiana Jones and dash in, grab the treasure and dash out with the place collapsing around their ears. Also that one can find out EVERYTHING about anything because someone contemporary will have written a book about it that has been preserved miraculously down to the modern day in a readable and uncorrupted form.

It makes good TV but - but - but - well you can guess.

[wulfila.livejournal.com]

I don't know the series, but I'm curious: What mistakes did you come across?

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Too many mistakes to list. For a start ninety per cent of archaeology consists of looking down the hole, sighing and covering it back up again due to insufficient funding. As I said, it's entertaining TV but if Horton was consulted he didn't work very hard about instilling a sense of the ethics of the job into the writers.

[fuchsoid.livejournal.com]

I remember this. How many episodes have you seen so far? The archaeological accuracy only gets worse as the series progresses!

[essayel.livejournal.com]

I bought them for £3 in Morrisons and watched the lot as I ironed, laughing hollowly every so often. Wasn't it AWFUL!!!!
I particularly liked the idea that a standard hand and a half round pommelled medieval sword could have been made by the Assyrians. That was on a par with the History Channel bio of Attila that depicted his "Sword of God" as a 15th C zweihander.

But there was a lot of other good stuff to hoot at.

[kc-risenphoenix.livejournal.com]

Never heard of "Bonekickers." What's it about?

[essayel.livejournal.com]

It's a short lived British tv series - only half a dozen episodes - about a team of archaeologists. the feisty tough female leader of the group, ferociously intelligent but with a vulnerable side, her ex - equally intelligent and adept but prepared to let her do the grand standing, the older man, a scholar, a drunk and a lecher, who is nevertheless very kind, and the youngster, a girl this time, learning the trade. Two were white and two were black, which makes a nice change. It's all tied up with Atlantis and Excalibur somehow. I've no idea where they got the term 'Bonekickers' from - I've never heard it used in an archaeological context. I think it was an attempt to make a British version of Young Indiana Jones, only it was done SO badly. I did enjoy seeing places I knew and giggling madly at the perfectly dreadful things they did. The show was just bad enough to be funny.

Adrian Lester (http://www.amctv.com/images/originals/hustle/cast_alester_lg.jpg) is very gorgeous, but a far better show to see him in is Hustle, which is about con-men.