Abandoned Engineering

I'm not sure. But as a fan of both Mysteries of the Abandoned and Abandoned Engineering it just feels that when i have watched an episode of Mystieries of the Abandoned, 3 days later Abandoned Engineering will air..

And i have watched it? Same narrative, same points. Only difference is the talking heads being swapped out..

So who is copying who? And why?

Don't get me wrong, i do enjoy the production quality.

But it just feels rehashed.

As in being done for lazy watching.

Is it because of different networks?

It is the same material after all.

How was this even produced?

Would be nice if they could be separated somehow.

This is a good series but could be so much better. I've bought books on ruins and abandoned buildings so I was really looking forward to the series. The stories are always interesting, some remarkable, but the style of production is so annoying, the equivalent of finger nails scratching a blackboard! I'm now at the point where I now don't bother watching. The fake suspense about the actual previous use of the building is so annoying and having studio based experts pretending they've actually been there instead of being shown a few seconds video and given information just doesn't work. The programme should stick to the local based guides who are far more effective and cut out the fake suspense.

Abandoned Engineering had the potential to be a really interesting series about historical ruins and places of interest. Unfortunately the presentation is so bad it's practically unwatchable.

There's a constant backing track of "mood music" which is usually heavy on percussion. This often drowns out the voiceover, which switches between loud and quiet depending on the scene. It's all quite distracting.

Just as bad is the input from the narrator and many of the specialists, whose vocabulary mostly consists of melodramatic comments such as "almost alien", "something bad must have happened here", and similar inanities. With the honourable exeption of Roma Agrawal, who comes over very well, the presenters are all rather odd characters. There's the one with the intent, bulgy eyes, the one with the slow, mangled syllables, the slightly awestruck American... after not very long, it just grates. Too much gee-whizzery all round, I'm afraid.

The subjects are potentially very interesting, the format is just painful. Rather than clearly explain the structure, it jumps to a series of 'experts' who have clearly never been there, but read some scripts. It takes three or four disconnected 'experts' to read the story. I know its a cheap way to do it but if you can't afford to send people there, just get one to read it out.

It's a bit lighter on facts and figures than I'd prefer and definitely too heavy on the dramatisation, but otherwise excellent. I can't help but look up all the locations on Google maps of these amazing structures and then go digging in further on Wikipedia for more detail. Hugely entertaining and educational. I recommend this show to anyone with a passing interest in modern archaeology, architecture or recent history.