The BBC

[Obo]

Am I the only person who finds the BBC's history documentaries infuriating? You know the ones where they have a ficticious character/animal who 'lived' at the time and we follow their life story... like walking with beasts or the other night that Pyramd program.... what a load of rubbish, what happened to programs that present the information in an informative and scientific manner rather than hog wash about an iguanadon being abandoned by it's mother or some made up Egyptians brother being killed...... give me strength! (? - just to show there is a question in there somewhere!)

[Spellmaster]

I agree that some of their programMEs (we're not all Americans yet!!) are infuriating, and a lot of Walking with Beasts was not 'historical' at all but based on supposition. However, there are some gems still, such as Simon Schama's 'History of Britain' and the wonderful Adam Hart-Davis programmes.

[Spellmaster]

P.s. And David Attenborough is still making wonderful programmes such as the outstanding 'Blue Planet'.

[Obo]

Long time no see Spellmaster! Thank you for your correction, program/programme is one of those I always mix up and as I wrote it I had an inkling that I'd gone the wrong way with it, but knew someone would have the good grace to correct me. ,

I agree with you, the BBC does make some great historical prorammes, including those you mention, but the growing trend of programmes like Pyramid makes me worried, do you think it is a case of dumbing down or (as I'm sure the BBC would argue) presenting the subject in a more easily digestible format?

[Spellmaster]

To be honest Obo, I do think there is some dumbing down going on, and I agree entirely with you that it is infuriating. Too often - and Walking with Beasts was a prime example - supposition is presented as fact, and the onus does seem to be on entertainment at the expense of education (as opposed to as well as education). It is a definite trend, and it's an alarming one.

[WendyW]

I no longer watch their history documentaries .. they are silly fiction instead of fact !!!!!. Dumbing down is not the word for it.

[quattro]

The BBC may be dumbing things down but you could argue that they are opening up these subjects to a wider audience and perhaps ensuring that Joe Public developes an interest in Egyptology rather than Britain's sexiest Builder ,which seems to be what the opposition is putting out.

[Alice]

I quite agree, Obo, I really looked forward to 'The Pyramid' but was very disappointed to find that such a potentially interesting programme turned out to be a pseudo-soap. There were precious few references to source material so we must assume that it was mostly based on supposition.

[Unabashed]

I was particually intrigued by the sight of 15 tonnes of granite floating down the Nile on some ricketty little boat.

[cupra]

Next we'll have 'Pharoh-Stars' - send your vote in by Camel, written on Papyrus!

If you're a fan of Simon Schama, Adam Hart-Davis et al (and have access to Digital TV), check out the new UK-History channel!

[Moog]

At least the Beeb can still make great soaps, cracking episode of Easdtenders this evening!