Digging for Britain

I loved everything about this series and have told several people about it. I enjoyed the different ages and eras and the coverage given to each one. I especially liked the discussion about the bones found as much as any treasure.

Loved this series and would have given it a ten but I would have enjoyed it a great deal more if there had been subtitles. Being rather deaf I miss so much unless there are subtitles.

I find it incomprehensible that making the programmes available for the deaf has been ignored. Playing music while people are speaking makes things even more difficult to follow to any degree and I have to turn my tv up to maximum to make out any speech but I still miss so much.

I hope that this aspect will be addressed in any future series. I do feel a bit mean posting a complaint because, as previously mentioned, I have really enjoyed the series and feel it opens archeology to complete novices in an interesting and easily understood format.

This "magazine" style show about archaeology and history in the UK is excellent.

Alice Roberts does a good job of introducing the various locations/digs and allows the local experts to take over and fill in the gaps.

It reveals so many interesting sites and finds that i knew nothing about, covering British history going back to prehistory. It also introduces some interesting new scientific techniques for analysing the finds and learning more about the people in early history.

It's well shot and well put together so that it all seems seamless as we move from one location to another. I think, actually, that we could do with more than six episodes in a season!

I think each episode could be half as long. There is more filler just using up time than I think I have ever seen before in a BBC documentary style production. Many of the images used as filler are just silly - waves rolling on a beach when we're told someone roved the seas, or a dog running about when we're told he was an explorer. I sort of expect any production associated with the BBC to be much better in terms of style and content. The host does have that distinctive British TV presenter accent and cadence down just right, though, if she does talk rather slowly. I don't think it's worth setting the PVR. I watched two episodes to give it a try, but there's not enough there.

The first eight episodes (two series) were brilliant. The digs were interesting, the conclusions neither sensationalized nor presented as fact with too little evidence. Alice Roberts guides the audience through it clearly and enjoyably.

But then, starting with the third series, it looks like the producers decided they didn't want to make anything so staid as perhaps the best archaeology series on English-speaking television ever. No, they wanted a talk show. Now tell me, what does that gifted young presenter need with a co-host? Is he there just to titillate the androphiles? Feh. I am one, and I couldn't get through the first episode.

When I skipped to the fourth series to see if they later got their heads back on straight, I discovered that they did change course, but not to their original format. Now they wanted to be a reality show, having the archaeologists at the digs record videos of the "moments of discovery" and send them in so that the "best" (in whose opinion? what are the criteria?) could be shown to the audience. Sure, there's a lab portion, but the videos looked so pointless and merely sensational that I couldn't bring myself to go any further.

I'm sure it's cheaper to send Professor Roberts to fewer locations, but if I wanted to watch a talk show or a reality show, I would have selected one of those to watch. I wanted to see a documentary. And after giving me episodes that I'd easily rate an 8 or a 9, they give me talk shows and reality shows, neither of which I watch because I consider them to be zeroes.

My advice is to watch the first eight episodes, and then give the third series onward a miss. Find yourself another actual documentary and watch that.