Unearthed

Just watched the Seven Wonders of America, episode Golden Gate Bridge. They think the GGB connects San Francisco and Oakland! Oy! And someone in production is way too fond of their CGI of exploded views. It was interesting for the first couple of episodes but now it's annoying and takes up too much time. Is it just space filler?

I just can't keep watching this silliness. The narrator's persistent use of the present tense for historical facts is so annoying that it has become intolerable. This habit is correct when documenting authors in a research paper but not when referring to events that happened long ago in the past. He also refers to current issues with present tense with no differentiation between the two. The errors are grievous, moreover, occurring in every episode. For instance (King Arthur, the one I'm currently watching), the Holy Grail wasn't so much a cup used at the Last Supper as a container to catch the blood of the crucified Christ. Each episode has its own collection of errors; that just isn't acceptable.

I was just watching Egypt's Buried City. The show remarks that a child had arthritis in their feet, how unusual this was and their conclusion was that the child's arthritis was caused by having to work hard to build the city. Except from what my research shows Juvenile Arthritis exists, is the most common chronic condition in children, commonly affects the feet, is not necessarily caused by heavy labour and any damage caused by it is still long term or permanent. And as this child was the only one specifically pointed to as having arthritic joints it would seem to be just an interesting coincidence rather than anything conclusive about child labour. The other evidence about the bones, which would have been far more conclusive, seemed tacked onto the end of that section of the documentary to reinforce their conclusion when it should have been the primary evidence. In the end it seemed that the authors used the audiences preconceived beliefs that arthritis is an old persons disease to either gain audience interest or push their own conclusions. Either way it was deceptive at best. I would not recommend watching without a healthy level of critical thought and scepticism.

I watched the episode about the Tower of Babel. Throughout the the show they referenced the build as King Nebuchadnezzar, which is wrong according to historical fact and the Bible. Fact is it was built by King Nimrod the hunter. Not Nebuchadnezzar look it up, I did

The narration refuses to use past tense, as if to imply that these ancient structures were being built even as we watch. There are multiple factual errors, and worst is the overall implication that these structures are all TOTAL mysteries and the people on the show are discovering all this interesting stuff about them (for instance, I'm watching "The Tower of London" and the narrator pretends no one knows who built the tower, when it's been an established fact of history since the day it was built. The archaeologists play along, as if they are discovering things that have been known for decades, if not centuries.

The show seems aimed at kids, but they'd be better served to watch a program that uses facts and not falsehoods.

The visuals are fun, and sometimes you learn something you didn't know - but you can't trust the source, so ...