I thought the producers had set the show up to have some great conflict within the group. It was going to very interesting to see if they could overcome their differences and pull together as a colony.
In case you don’t know 17 people were going to set up a colony in complete 17th century fashion. The governor was a man who IRL was a Baptist Minister from Waco TX. However the vice-governor and minister was a man from California who taught religious studies at a university. Even he pointed out how although they were both Christians they were very far apart on many things. Add to that one of women seemed to be anti-religious and it looked like some great fireworks were in store just like Frontier House. (Somehow I don’t mind this when PBS does it, unlike the Real World)
They held their church service. Attendance was required by law, so the anti-religious woman was really upset about the whole deal. The governor’s daughter was upset because to her, going to church on Sunday was the best thing in her life. The reverend did allow her to read from scripture and in what was probably the biggest slap to realism she then went on to explain what the bible passage meant to her. I’m sure young women went around interpreting scripture all the time.
I was looking forward to disliking this girl so now I feel bad that she and the rest of her family left the colony because her fiancée was killed in a car crash.
So now of the 17 people only 12 are left and the new governor, to me, seems to not be the sort of man of action that they are going to need if they have any chance of getting the work done they need. I doubt he is going to tell the complainers to shut up and get to work. I also find it really odd that the governor’s servants get to stay in the governor’s house by themselves, while the bachelor freemen sleep in a smaller house with two of them on the floor.
Did anybody else watch the first episodes?
I agree with you, they certainly seemed to select people that have some very fundamental differences in their reasons for being there. I think it’ll both set up some conflict - already has really - and also reflect the reality of why many people came in 1628.
As an aside it always steams me when people go around saying how the country was founded on religions freedom…not exactly, it was founded on people wanting to be able to warship in their particular way - it was a rare Pilgrim who believed in religious freedom for Catholics, for example.
My husband was riveted to this show, where he didn’t care a bit for the others like Manor house, because an ancestor of his came to America on the Mayflower (John Billington if anyone is curious; he was hanged for murder, though the family says it was just a misunderstanding over a horse).
What I always enjoy the most with these shows is the people who have to be servants - how they adapt, what it teaches them about the times.
Oh and I watched Oprah yesterday too. What a dumb stunt. And since she revealed that
both african american participants leave early in the show
I’m waiting for it to happen, instead of just sitting back and watching.
I watched it. I loved Manor House. Very interesting to me is how on both shows, the Master and Mistress of the houses think that the servants all love them, and that they’re only too happy to serve them and they’re all one big happy family. Get the servants alone and ask them, and they have an entirely different viewpoint of the situation and are close to mutiny.
Did anyone else catch the part where the (I think ?) Governor’s wife was talking to the son and he was going on about “what if it was for real and the Indians were dangerous?” and she goes “They’re still dangerous… don’t you watch the 10:00 news?” :eek:
I caught bits and pieces of it, and, of course, my family thinks that when I am trying to watch something is the best time to talk to me. :rolleyes:
My overall impression was “Good Og, what a bunch of whiners!” There was the whining about attending church services, whining about milking the goats (they need to hobble those suckers!), whining about who does the cooking etc… What did these people expect? Did no one read anything about the time period? Did no one prepare? I expect conflict, you cannot have even as few as 2 human beings in the same place without it, but this group seemed a little off.
After the Governer and his family left nothing was done for what, 3 days?, and the corn was already overdue to be planted by a week. And, did anyone remember to water all that maize they planted?
I am looking forward to see how this group comes together as a community, and do hope the governer and his family are able to come back. What a devastating blow to them!
As an aside it always steams me when people go around saying how the country was founded on religions freedom…not exactly, it was founded on people wanting to be able to warship in their particular way - it was a rare Pilgrim who believed in religious freedom for Catholics, for example.
[Quote]
Jamestown (1607) certainly wasn’t about religious freedom. It was a money-making proposition the whole way. It wasn’t until Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom that you got away from the Church of England being the State Religion.
Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Maryland are the only colonies I can think of off the top of my head that had religious toleration as one of their primary underpinnings.
Watched it and loved it. Completely hooked. Here are my impressions based on houses:
Wyers (Governors) - Texan baptists: husband, wife, two daughters and a son. Plus their servants Paul and Julia. This family drove me nuts with all their God-talk. Heinz (Lay preacher) - CA professors: husband and wife (who look like Bilbo and a Swedish amazon swear to God…) Plus their servant Jonathon. I want to be this couple when I grow up. So smart, cute and funny… Voorhees - husband, wife and son. Plus the only female non-servant, Amy. I really wanted to like this family but the wife’s moodiness made it tough. Freemen - three guys. A shack o’ hotties who can’t cook.
The interaction between the colonists and Indians was pretty interesting and probably pretty darn accurate. Initial fear and alarm, then the only “half-breed” in the colony makes nice. The Wyers took the fear and alarm to extremes though, IMHO. I can’t wait to see how the maize crop looks.
Also acccording to my Texan co-worker, Native Americans aren’t viewed as sympathetically down there compared to other places (like in the NE where we live). I guess it stems from the type of tribes who lived down in Texas like Apache and Comanche who were very warlike. Meanwhile, up in the NE we had the Penobscot, Micmac, Mohegan etc. who were more hunters than warriors.
I missed it last night - had to work. I’m hoping it will be re-broadcast, because I really liked Mansion House and I did catch Oprah yesterday where she and her friend Gail (sp?) spent a weekend at the Colony. Very funny. Definitely not the spa experience Gail seemed to be expecting*.
The Oprah visit was in, IIRC, week 17 of the experiment/show. So it probably gave away some of the outcomes/events (as covered by twiddle), but it still looks like it will be interesting to watch unfold.
Oh, and Oprah revealed that she’d never before gone commando, when she made such a big deal about having to give up her “panties” for the authentic costume. Who new?
*When she told Oprah - cooking hand-sliced bacon in an iron skillet over a fire - how she wanted her bacon cooked extra crispy like she always ordered it from room service, the look on Oprah’s face spoke volumes.
I was hoping for less whining, too. It seems like the show becomes entertainment by watching people find ways to buck the rules and their justification for doing so. Some of it, I understand. Removing corsets on a past show, due to problems breathing, etc. Cheating by salvaging an old box spring, not so understandable. I know the preparation was shown, and when a majority of your training focuses on chopping wood and milking animals, it seems like then would be a good time to realize, “This is hard work!” Add in the first-aid training, and there’s a clue about the very real dangers to physical health. I also yelled for someone to hobble the goats, heh.
I was also hoping this would be a season where someone didn’t quit. I don’t see the Wyers having control over what happened, so felt genuinely bad for them. Still, it’s disappointing to have the colony reduced so quickly. Glad they didn’t decide to make the colonists land in winter.
One of the things that stood out, was Heinz not wanting to be subservient to the governor. He seemed to quickly begin missing Wyer when he left, and looked relieved when Wyer returned. Cracked me up. I also really enjoyed the traditional dances (maybe the instruction of the colonists in these, led to them thinking it would be easier) and general celebration over the planting of the corn. Not strictly a spoiler, but since it involved previews:
Can’t wait to see the punishments previewed in the next episodes. I did a bunch of reading on 17th century punishments on some good sites, and then read the adaptations with the available punishments on the PBS site. Looks interesting.
In the real history of New England, Oprah didn’t visit the Pilgrims until they had been here for years. At that time she showed them how to convert maize and pig lard into high protein drinks for a liquid weight loss diet and recommended The Bible as her book choice for 124 consecutive weeks, at which time it was replaced by Deepak Chopra’s Finding Enlightenment for $29.95 [$12.00 paperback] and a holy war began which ended with her being imprisoned in a tree trunk for 360 years.
I really liked the show, though I agree about the “what’d you expect?” whining. Personally I would have granted them one modernity- an actual toilet [though it could still be in the woods].
I’m surprised they didn’t have some of the actors from Plimoth Plantation partake. It would be interesting to see if these people who do such a phenomenal job of remaining in character during park-hours would be able to make the extra leap and live 24-7 as 17th century folk.
So does it violate my absolute love of Colonial history that I think Manchester boy is majorly cute? (And the “g*d-damn!” story was hysterical.)
Next episodes are tonight, not next week. Why can’t PBS use a sane schedule like every other network??? It would be so easy for them to show this on eight consecutive Mondays but instead they blow their wad in two weeks.
trublmakr, Pop Wyers came back in the very last scene of the 2nd hour, and didn’t say anything. Very easy to miss.
The CA couple is from here, and here is the article about them from yesterday’s paper. Fun details. They spoke several weeks ago about their experience and it was fascinating stuff. I’ve been looking forward to this, but the broadcast last night kicked out in the middle, so I’m TiVoing it and haven’t seen it yet.
As a matter of fact NO. My household, and several other re-enactor families applied to be in this farce of NON-REALISM tv and were told bluntly they don’t use anybody who has any background in re-enacting. They want people to be clueless.
Sometime ask me what I thought about 1900 House, and get ready for an earful=\
Now, I’m an agnostic. I don’t go to church. I’d have certain internal issues with the time period, were I to do something like this show, that I’d have to work out on my own.
But I’m not a flipping idiot, and I wouldn’t be whining about it in the FIRST WEEK, as I’d have rubbed two brain cells together to make enough of a fire to realize that it might be an issue.
Stupid bitch. Grr, do I hate her already. I mean, not enough to remember her name or anything, or to look it up, but hey.
Did they ever catch anything in the fishing boat? Why on earth were they just putting out at that late time in the day? For that matter, why don’t we see anybody waking up with the sun? Lazy bastards. They’d starve if this were for real, come winter.
I enjoy this show as well. I was thinking last night - if you were on the show what position would you hope to get? I don’t think I would want to be governor (too much opportunity to fail miserably because of me, ) although being a woman the best I could get would be governor’s wife anyway. Why do none of the freemen have wives? Could you not be a freeman and be married?
They need to learn how to get organized as a whole. I don’t think they are dividing the work up well - the women should get together and help each other with the food prep more and I don’t think they should put it on the men. The freemen are a big labor supply and they would be more efficient at hard labor so don’t take up their time with food prep, just make bigger portions of things when you cook for your own house and let them eat with you. Keep the women out of the fields and let them run the house and keep the men supplied with food so they can work outside more and get the crops going - that is vital to their success (wow - never thought those words would ever be said by me - lol!). I think the women are bringing in a lot of modern baggage in terms of feeling insulted that they have to stay in the kitchen and such, but if I were on a show like this I would expect to have to do the jobs that a woman would normally do, and live by the rules including going to church. This is why I’m not on the show - I think being a woman in that period would have been awful. But watching them I can see that it just makes more sense to divide up the work the same way it was done back then.
It does make sense that Everybody Plants - the corn has gotta get in the ground now (and I can’t believe the whining about it!) But otherwise, yeah, I hate to say it but it makes sense to have the women do, er, the women’s work.
In fact, the women on this show seem way too idle, even after three of them left - my grandmother raised eight kids in an environment that was probably more like Colonial House than like modern grocery store life, and she was always doing something, even in her old age. If you wanted to talk to her, you didn’t just sit and talk, you ironed or cleaned greens or shelled peas or whatever. Old habits, even though she didn’t need to work that hard anymore.
Yeah, I wondered about that, too. I see some of how she was doling out the chores could be seen as nagging, but really, I think a servant back then would have been happy to be afforded the respect of even sitting at the table with them. I’m guessing something must have happened between them earlier, from his mentioning they were the family he didn’t want to be “stuck” with. I so far like Mrs. Heinz with her eavesdropping with the diary cam (can’t remember who her conspirator was) and the calmness she exhibited during the arguing over the divvying up of cooking.
