How hard is it to get medical facts right?
I've watched Land Girls to the bitter end, and feel several IQ points less intelligent now. Really, as other reviewers have said, the series is rife with historical inaccuracies. But as one BBC spokesman said, period pieces don't have to be accurate. Really?
Most annoying to me, though, were the episodes in which Martin, the young boy, gets hit in the face by a barn door. He gets up and walks home, with a bit of a headache. But later, he mentions that he "can't see" a page of writing, although somehow he has no problem getting about.
Some days, or weeks? later, he goes to the doctor and finds out he has "detached retinas" (although he can still see), which means he'll go blind without an operation.
Apparently no one did a blind bit of research on this: In order to have both retinas detach, you'd have to be hit extremely hard on the back of the head, and would have not been trotting around soon after. Also, if your retinas are detached, you simply would not be able to see, and after waiting for weeks for the "operation" it's unlikely that there would still be any viable tissue left. 20 years after this period piece, retinal surgery was still in its infancy, with low rates of success.
Of course the "operation" was a plot device that had consequences that took the series through several episodes.
But really, is it that difficult for script writers to do a bit of research? I think they must count on people being so ignorant about history and other facts that they don't notice glaring errors. Perhaps they think we all have retinal detachments.
Most annoying to me, though, were the episodes in which Martin, the young boy, gets hit in the face by a barn door. He gets up and walks home, with a bit of a headache. But later, he mentions that he "can't see" a page of writing, although somehow he has no problem getting about.
Some days, or weeks? later, he goes to the doctor and finds out he has "detached retinas" (although he can still see), which means he'll go blind without an operation.
Apparently no one did a blind bit of research on this: In order to have both retinas detach, you'd have to be hit extremely hard on the back of the head, and would have not been trotting around soon after. Also, if your retinas are detached, you simply would not be able to see, and after waiting for weeks for the "operation" it's unlikely that there would still be any viable tissue left. 20 years after this period piece, retinal surgery was still in its infancy, with low rates of success.
Of course the "operation" was a plot device that had consequences that took the series through several episodes.
But really, is it that difficult for script writers to do a bit of research? I think they must count on people being so ignorant about history and other facts that they don't notice glaring errors. Perhaps they think we all have retinal detachments.
- douglasscarol123
- Apr 3, 2015