Tutankhamun

I am actually a relative of Dr Howard Carter as he is my great, great, great uncle. I loved this show and really enjoyed the added excitement of the affair.

A lot of critics say that the affair is annoying and did not happen but really know one knows if it did or did not happen so disregard this as a critic of the show. Also, the fact that the sand or stone is not the right colour is just silly as this would have been extremely hard to replicate and is such as minor detail.

Overall, the show was amazing and captivating to the audience. It really showed the hardships Carter went through and why it was such an brilliant find.

The harshest reviews here have been by people criticizing the series historical inaccuracies, but all I know about the discovery of King Tut's tomb I know from a little light reading after watching the series, so I really don't care if there were no Rolls Royce's in Egypt at the time.

But purely as a historical drama, the series isn't especially well constructed. I don't mind the romance between Carter and Lady Evelyn because it most likely never happened but rather because it overshadows the actual story of the tomb. The problem is that the script never makes me care about that relationship, yet focuses on it so much that I feel the science is completely underserved.

I was also a little bothered by the portrayal of the Egyptian government as officious, soulless bureaucrats. I'm not saying they weren't, but I think the history of Egypt, Britain, and artifacts is a rather complicated one and this strikes me as a simplistic approach.

Overall, this feels like a script written by someone who wasn't convinced that Carter's discovery of the Tomb was particularly compelling, and thus ginned it up with romance and conflict and attempted to shape it into a conventional and fairly forgettable little drama.

On the other hand, the story is scenic, the actors are likable, there are good moments, and overall the series kept me entertained until it fizzled at the end.

Well...

Definitely romanticized. Fairly accurate historically. Carter is a bit changed to be as much like Brandon Frasier's/ Nicolas Cage's archaeologist characters as they can get away with, to make this more interesting. Other characters are altered to be pretty eccentric to peak interest, to enrich the story.

As long as they stick to the actual history, I don't mind them taking such poetic license.

It is historically accurate so far as I said. The actual story is there. They didn't show that early on Carter really was in charge of practically everything. They kind of showed him as simply an archaeologist who lost his permit. He was actually in charge of the whole area when he lost his title, over a dispute with arrogant French tourists. They also didn't emphasize that because of his willingness to fight for his workers, they were very loyal to him. I hope that comes out.

I do feel they could have easily started with his boyhood and added a few episodes to this.

They also didn't show that for years he survived on his art, selling it to tourists. And his art was good! Find an original Howard Carter, you've got something.

Other than that...it's pretty darn good.

Added:

Wow did this go off the rails eventually. It's one thing to create a couple of characters in a historic story, for romance and intrigue, like Titanic did. It's another thing to take a real 21 year old woman, and put her in a romance with a real 48 year old guy! Libel, I would almost suspect? Are there living relatives who might be kind of offended? They've got this fantasy romance effecting decisions and outcomes of historic importance. Jack and Rose's fantasy romance didn't effect the steering of the Titanic, or other real events. They're making things happen because of this fake hook up.

I would like to address the review by "lukemanning from London" who probably thinks every American accent is a valley girl accent. As a Canadian, our accent is very close to the American accent, so I feel pretty qualified to say that Catherine Steadman's American accent was very good, I didn't realize she wasn't American. Very good for a modern American accent that is, I wouldn't know whether this was accurate for early 20th-century America.

I am originally Egyptian (Egyptian who grew up in Canada) and I have been looking into the actors of the Egyptian characters in Tutankhamun and I have been quite disappointed. Only one of them (Selim) seems to have Egyptian origins, but even he is actually ethnically mixed and doesn't look completely Egyptian, and his Arabic accent wasn't great. The rest didn't seem to be Egyptian. Egyptian cinema is booming, there is no shortage of Egyptian actors, and all Egyptians learn English in school, so there really is no reason why they couldn't have used Egyptian actors rather than British actors who look like they could pass for Egyptians. The Egyptian economy definitely needs all the help it can get right now, so it feels a little bit of an affront that they would make a movie set in Egypt and benefit off Egyptian history, and yet choose the filming and the Egyptian characters to have nothing at all to do with Egypt, thereby avoiding benefiting Egypt in any way.

I am enjoying the show and find it entertaining, but I am disappointed with how it was not Egyptian in any way. I hope that this show at least makes people more interested in visiting Egypt and brings back some of the tourism that has died in the last few years.

Despite the inaccuracies, this miniseries is still watchable fascinating and well made. The story of the greatest discovery is so good that it makes up for the faults. The discovery itself is quite thrilling and one can really feel the joy.

One of the best points is the detail shown. There are lots of details about the financial, political difficulties regarding the dig. It does give some historical context to the time of the discovery. The question over what Egypt gets to keep and what the discoverer gets as a reward is interesting. It's not right that foreigners take away the historical treasures of any country yet the discoverer needs some compensation for their expenses.

Dealing with the faults: It wasn't filmed in Egypt and the sand and valley are darker and don't look like Egypt. It would have been tough to film in Egypt with all the instability since 2011 anyway. The romances with a Met Museum woman and Lady Evelyn Herbert are a little distracting but I guess if they didn't blow these up it would have been kind of like a documentary. There are some bad American accents of a few characters. Also Max Irons is too young looking at the time of the discovery - bit like Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the Tudors. But so what - he is watchable and actually is quite good here if you ignore the age thing - I can't think of another young actor who could have done a better job.

A little more of the factual elements of the curse could have been shown besides Lord Carnarvon's death. Some strange things did happen. Better than showing the romances.

If you enjoyed this - highly recommend a 1980 TV movie "The Curse of King Tut's Tomb", an excellent and exciting movie about the discovery and the curse. Forget about the more recent one with Casper Van Dien.

Quite a pleasure to watch despite it's faults.