343 The Failures of PBS's Colonial House

After Jeff Wyers and his family left the village, there wasn't much point in watching, since he seemed to be the only one who really caught the flavor of the 17th century life. Thank goodness for Jack Lecza, the treasurer sent by the venture capitalists, or the colony would have imploded. But I stayed with it--perhaps the only reality show I've ever watched with any interest.

It was so frustrating to see what was filmed and talked about, and know what wasn't. I would have much preferred to see a more complete routine of how hard the women worked to prepare meals than to hear the constant whining of Michelle Rossi-Vorhees. I'm sure she would have been much more impressive as a hard working provider than a pouting church/state activist. If she knew she was an atheist, or agnostic, before hand, why sign up for a religious settlement where you've agreed to abide by the rules?

I would have liked to see what the indentured servant Jonathon actually did to earn back his financed passage, rather than hear about his 21st century homosexuality which just had to be blathered about to millions of watchers who really didn't care. Would you take your young children to a public meeting to hear that? Probably not. But that was his coming out party--the Sabbath Meeting of the colony. How phoney and self-aggrandizing. And how manipulative of PBS.

And in the summary, post-colony scenes, why not more information on the families and servants who arrived as replacements, like the Verdecia family? One shot of people stepping into the shower would have been sufficient.

The voice-over lady. Where did she get her facts? Off a web site built by a junior high school social studies class? It isn't true there were no free blacks in 17th century America. It isn't true that 10,000,000 Africans were enslaved in America (no one knows how many were captured in Africa, shipped and died en route, but overwhelmingly they arrived in the islands and South America to work in sugar plantations). If 90% of all Native Americans died of diseases brought by the Europeans, I don't think there would have been enough left to trade with or fight with.

I'm sure the group who lived this six weeks in Maine with no modern conveniences learned something. I just wish the rest of us could have been let in on the fun.

One comment about the women's appearance: they looked terrific, dirty or not, during the filming and their complexions bloomed. They looked so artificial in the post-production scenes covered with make-up.