The child molestor argument started off absurd; I disavow it.
It’s not a red herring on “the project didn’t start off emphasizing it” because it’s true. Having a church and a preacher as major components of the town is one thing; being forced to sit through religious services and roleplay religious persecution is quite another.
“Fairness to atheists” is relevant because there are atheists on the show. If they wanted to model the seventeenth century, they shouldn’t have accepted atheist applicants. They chose to do so, and so they need to take their choice into consideration.
I imagine the producers rejected any vegetarian applicants from the show. If they’d accepted ethical vegetarians on the show, they would’ve been obligated to make allowances for them as well.
Yes, 8:00 to 10:00 again tonight and another show tomorrow night. Why is PBS blowing it all in two-night installments like this? It also seems like they’re zipping through it rather quickly. It was a 4-month experiment, and I think they’re in the third month already. They could have stretched this out in one-week installments all summer and it would have still been very interesting.
Governor Wyers leaves again (whether for real-life family problems again or if it’s part of the show’s ‘plan,’ I don’t know) and they get a new Governor.
I’ll be watching.
Apparently, the producers ‘sold’ the show very, very differently to the different families. The Heinzes were adamantly pursued–they tried to back out twice, over scheduling and the reading issue*–because of HeinzMan’s position as a lay preacher. They really wanted him to be the preacher, and made it abundantly clear that religion would play a large role. The Voorhies, OTOH, were apparently not informed about the religion angle at all (though one would think it would be obvious). They clearly started off regarding it as an extended survival/camping adventure. So, blame the producers–they wanted it set up this way and they did it on purpose.
One thing I can’t understand is how much the women object to the headcoverings. They’re uncomfortable, yes, but also very practical. Working all day in a smoky house in an era without shampoo–I’d wear a coif too. And watching VoorhiesWoman bend over an open fire with all that frizzy hair gave me the willies.
Once again, I will be 24 hours behind everyone else–bummer. Looking forward to the rest.
*Originally, all the women were supposed to be illiterate. HeinzWoman said she couldn’t survive the whole time without reading, and they wanted the family badly enough that they let her read and keep a journal (on authentic paper, with a quill). Of course, they only had a Bible and a book of IIRC Cook’s voyages, but she did get to read.
aruqvan, I’m impressed: you set the bar a lot higher than most of us in the SCA ever reach. At least, SCA events more often look like medieval-themed costume parties than serious reenactment or “living history”. (I’m one of the dudes strapping armour on my ass and whalin’ away with a rattan sword.)
The oddly sultry Madame Voorhees made a good point in tonight’s episode, when Jack (the new guy, supposedly sent by the Bristol company to get the colony in shape) wanted to make an issue of her not attending sabbath: they’ve made compromises in every other area of social realism, so why not this one? Jonathon wasn’t publicly executed for being a Sodomite; the women are allowed a lot more freedom than is probably realistic; even the servants are nearly as subserviant as they might be.
But otherwise Jack is a welcome addition: these people needed somebody to kick them in the ass. I’m astonished they’re still sleeping in; even after a couple of months they don’t seem to be getting into the mindset of the people they’re supposed to be representing. As somebody mentioned, they know PBS won’t let them die; otherwise they might not be laughing at the discovery of their meat stores being rotten. Too bad Jack wasn’t there from the start; they could have been clamming on a regular basis, gathering berries to get them through the winter without scurvy, producing a profitable amount of goods to ship back to the company… in the promo for the next episode, one of the freemen is saying, “I didn’t expect to be in a labor camp.” Seems to me that’s about what you should expect if you sign up to simulate a 1628 colony trying to carve a living out of the rocky Maine soil.
Did anyone catch those comments Carolyn made to the camera about selecting a new governor? Did anyone else get the idea that all along she (at least) has been secretly ticked off that Don wasn’t selected in the first place?
I have been amazed and repelled by this woman all through the show. Her academic background shows in her love of intrigue and gossip. Her power-behind-the-throne manipulations are hilarious.
I think the other colonists have her pegged pretty well.
Mama Vorhees really bugs me. I know I know respect for her athiesim and so forth, but did she honestly not know about church? No one is asking her to go around dropping to her knees or to pray every night before bed. But how could she not know she’d be expected to go to church when she signed on? It is driving me up a wall.
The Heinzes are also really annoying. The Don is so wishy-washy and yet grabby about his privliges.
It feels like the producers realized they had an out-of-control trainwreck on their hands and are scrambling to salvage something by sending in Jack to make them actually live up to the reasons they went to the colony. Otherwise it would just be a show about people bitching.
I’m not liking this one as much as the other Houses, because it is far less about showing the minutae of life that can only be seen thru the living of day to day life and more about how 21st century people just aren’t able to (to quote one of the participants) get into the headspace of 17th century life.
Nope. Apparently Amy, the other daughter that stayed behind after the accident, needed to be ‘hospitalized.’ They didn’t say, but I am assuming it is for something emotional. Which I think is kind of weird, personally, since it was Bethany’s fiance who was killed, and not Amy’s. But whatever.
I really, really like Jack. He is not afraid to get in there and I think he works a lot harder than some of the others. However, what a shame that they wasted one month on building the Verdecia’s house and then the Wyer’s was empty. Dom was really sweet to give up his bed–though he did say he probably deserved to be sleeping on the floor. I really like him, for some reason. But I am so hating the Heinzes. Full of yourself much? Jack would be a way better governor than Don. And Don Woods’ imitation of Heinz was a hoot!
No kidding. There were lots of shots last night of Don just standing around watching everyone else work.
And I didn’t like how they kicked Jonathan out of their house; that seemed a little rude. Although, if I were Jonathan, I think I’d rather be with the other single people my own age, rather than an older married couple. I understood how he felt insulted at being booted out, but couldn’t quite understand why he wanted so desparately to move back in.
And yes, Michelle Vorhees is getting on my nerves, too. It’s not like an actual 17th-century church service, with sermons lasting hours and hours. Since her husband is an officer (or counciler?), she should have known what would be expected of her. She’s just being really obstinate.
Carolyn Heinz annoys me also. Suse, I think you’re right; I bet she assumed the RL preacher would be the preacher, and her husband would be the Governor.
Again, though, it WASN’T expected of anyone in the beginning, right? It was only after the Baptist governor returned that it was required of folks to show up for church.
The Vorhees knew they were going into a simulation, that certain things wouldn’t be part of the simulation. If they predicted that required church wouldn’t be part of the simulation, then they would’ve been right–at least in the beginning. I can hardly fault them for not realizing that the governor was going to change that halfway through the simulation.
I just think the colony has spent way too much time and energy debating on whether or not the Voorhees should attend church and nobody is talking about all the other stuff like, gee, I don’t know, making the colony succeed!
Not sure how you’re defining “America,” here. However, it’s worth pointing out that there were successful settlements on the North American continent tens of thousands of years before Jamestown. Or do non-white people not count as settlers?
Jamestown was, at best, the first successful English colony.
interesting analogy between having your wife attend boring work dinners and meetings and such, and attending sabbath service.
i gotta admit i would pick a seat in the back and smuggle in a book.
i find it rather amusing on how before they got to the colony pastor heinz wondered how things would work out between him and wyers. i think last night gave us the answer. mr wyers cares very much about his fellow man, pastor heinz not so much.
the heinz family are very into entertaining. party for everything. i think mrs heinz was channeling mrs bucket with her candlelight dinners. i wonder if there was royal daulton pewter.
company man jack is quite the paint stick in the paint kettle. i think everyone will end up liking him.
we seem to have gotten 3 different interpretations on colonial life. wyers with religious utopia, heinz with the meeting and drinking of the founding fathers, and company man jack with the business end of the colonies.
i think a mix of all three are how you could get a somewhat successful colony.
it was rather telling that the threat in the colony was: “i’ll sell you to the heinz!”
tonight should be interesting. the tribe comes to terms with how seeing the colony effected them. the colonist have to see if they hit all the marks. i hope they give us an update on the wyers family.
Except that the producers deliberately set it up that way; they planned to have church be a large part of the colony, pursued the Heinzes with that as a goal, made it very clear to some of the participants–but not others. I don’t know about the governor (and I do think he was going over the top with the who ‘city on a hill’ thing), but the Heinzes have said that they were explicitly told that religion would be a huge part of the colony–while the Voorhies were not so informed. On purpose. So, from each participant’s perspective, they are fully justified.
But church was always mandatory, and three hours long, right from the beginning. The Voorhies just didn’t skip church the first time or two, and chose to make it an issue later on. Much to the delight of the producers, I’m sure.
I’m sure we can all agree that there were successful indigenous settlements for a mighty long time before the Europeans showed up, but I’m not sure anyone would call where the Native people lived “colonies” - spoke did say first successful American colony, not settlement. Though please correct me if I’m wrong and Native americans did colonize.
Good coupla shows tonight, of course my favorite was watching the scenes in the store and the showers. Boy were they grubby!
I’m wondering what happened to all the other folk who didn’t get to be a part of the follow-ups, and could they have spent a little less time on the Heinzs please? Good Lord!
Good for Paul and his beer, I’ll lift one to him m’self tonight.
I wondered the same thing. I liked that the female assessor commended the servants of the colony in her review, and was hoping to get a bit more focus on them and their thoughts.
Paul cracked me up, he’s in Thailand now?! hehe Looked like he was having fun, maybe they should have let him keep a diary cam for a bit longer. I wonder what they’ll do with the cabins in the colony now. Not my favorite of these PBS shows, I still like Manor House the best, but worth the veiwing IMHO.
Oh, please. This was NOT a viable colony. There is no way those people would make it through the summer, nor did they send enough goods in payment back to the company. I was very surprised to see that they passed.
And again, where the heck was everyone else on the follow-ups? Didn’t we listen to the Heinzes enough during the show?
