I don’t for a minute think it’s 100% historically accurate, or that all of the actors are realistically portraying 18th-century people. But in the last episode, one of them was an amateur astronomer bragging about his new “reflecting” telescope, “the latest design from Sir William Herschel, with a finely ground mirror” (a rough paraphrase).
It was a refractor (with an objective lens, not a mirror) on a very wobbly mount (you could see it jiggle everytime they took a step, making it unsuitable for astronomy).
Granted, it’s not exactly a documentary, but how could they have screwed up something as elementary as that?!?:smack:
It just a larger, antique version of a scope you can buy at Toys Я Us for $20.
I assume the director or props guy thought this looked cooler than a reflector telescope. Especially when he started talking about its possible use as a spy scope.
One of the reflecting scopes that Herschel used (named for him) didnt even have a secondary mirror - he just angled the primary. So your back was about 45 degrees to what you were looking at!
The latest episode, #7, was terrific. Washington stratar-gizing over a game of whist, whilst deciding the fate of our favourite backyard astronomer, Major Hewlett* who passes time talking (to no-one) of the mythology of the stars - Andromeda and such. Meanwhile, Billy Elliot is also locked up and almost gets ratted out. Then, Simcoe shows up for the cliff-hanger. Good stuff. I will hang in there to see how this Revolutionary War thing turns out.
*Hewlett is a town on Long Island. Named at least for Tories, if not for this fictional Major.
I also keep trying to watch and keep hoping it improves.
I finally realized that the sound mixer (or whatever it’s called) is off for me. My ears can’t distinguish all the layers of clashing music, drums, loud sound effects, dialog and accents. It’s such a muddle that I have to use closed captioning, which is a new experience.
I reckon the show has definitely improved heading into the last several episodes of this season. I haven’t heard if it’s renewed for a third season. But in this last episode we had Caleb sailing up in his little submarine-bomb, then stealing an officers uniform. Major Hewlett wasn’t even mostly dead. Benedict Arnold is going to do a Benedict Arnold. Robert Rodgers has become gainfully unemployed. Abe is still locked up, and Simcoe - perhaps the only character who’s easy to dislike (besides Mad Ol’ George) - is pretty unhappy.
I haven’t watched this series, but I’ve noticed this a lot in other series. Examples inclue Arrow and Constantine, but I’m quite sure I’ve noticed it in more as well. The two I mentioned even have problems with levels, where certain scenes are a lot lower in volume than others, to the degree that I’ve suddenly not been able to hear a thing, then in the next scene hear perfectly well what is going on. What is happening with sound engineers in tv production today? Do producers find it too expensive to hire engineers and decide to do the job themselves?
I made it most of the way through the first season before giving up. Too much love-triangle stuff, and the lead actor is kind of a charisma black-hole.
Coriolanus is close to tempting me back to try the second season though with this talk of “Caleb sailing up in his little submarine-bomb”.
I hadn’t heard about this series prior to this year, since I hadn’t watched any AMC except for Breaking Bad and Mad Men, but was able to binge watch the first season and am currently watching the second. I like it a lot.
I’m a history buff and really enjoy historical dramas, especially those like this time period (1770-1780) that we don’t see often on TV or in the movies. Is it 100% historically accurate? No. But it’s a drama, entertainment. NOT a documentary or historical special on the History Channel. If you want 100% Historical accuracy or want to know exactly what happened in history, you don’t get that from entertainment. As long as they don’t REALLY play fast and loose with the history, than I’m okay with it. I mean, could you imagine someone watching ***Inglourius Basterds *** for a true account of World war II???
Most of the main characters on Turn: Washington Spies are based on real life people and the entire series is basically the origin of The Culper Ring and espionage in America.
I for one hope it gets renewed for a third season.