HISTORICAL! Bonekickers, BBC One, 9.00pm
Sexy archaeology. Now, don’t get me wrong, one of my best friends is an archaeologist and he’s a very handsome man, but it’s still not a phrase I ever expected to find myself using on here. However, the creators of Life On Mars and Ashes to Ashes (and also variously Wild at Heart and Where the Heart Is, though they don’t seem to get trumpeted about as much, for some reason) have decided that it must be so, and thus a group of rugged and sassy archaeologists march on to prime time BBC One.
Having had a sneaky preview of episode one, the phrase “enjoyable hokum” feels slightly patronising, but that’s essentially what this is: if you try to take it seriously, your brain will trigger its emergency exit switch and leave your head behind in a dirty protest, because there’s far too much ridiculously OTT dialogue and plot contrivance to make that possible. If, however, you just want some solid entertainment with some blustering heroics and people throwing themselves on the ground while things explode behind them, you can’t go too far wrong with this.
Episode one skates on slightly dangerous ground, dealing with a batshit crazy religious cult whose views on racial tolerance are slightly less liberal than those of the Daleks, all of which ties into some relics which have recently been unearthed underneath a prospective housing complex. The actors all seem to be having a lark with it, which is reassuring, and special mention goes to Gugu Mbatha-Raw for actually trying to portray the whole thing in a way that actually pertains to the real world: a futile effort, I suspect, but an admirable one nonetheless.
I’ve possibly made this sound rubbish: it isn’t, it’s a lot of fun. Just don’t forget to bring your suspension of disbelief.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
terrible, really really terrible show. ouch – delete it from your SKY+ and take the series link off, then burn your house down and salt the earth. Its that bad.