Colonial House
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Movie Reviews of Colonial House
Movie Review: Politically correct distorted history
Summary: 2 Stars
Unlike the excellent "Frontier House," this series was a joke and makes it clear that political correctness has gone so far with liberals that empirical data, facts, and history no longer matter and that these will be quickly junked and dismissed if they conflict with the dogmas of the left (which PBS has become a mindless shrine to). This could have been an educational, entertaining look at history. Instead, we have a farce where atheists are publicly very vocal about their infidelity (in 1660!) without any punishment; where gays come out of the closet at church and get applauded for their personal courage (is this colonial America or the Phil Donahue show?); where African-Americans are members of the colony of English Puritans (what's next? A disabled, wheelchair bound individual demanding handicap access to the meeting hall? How about - just to keep the anachronistic diversity at suitably absurd levels - an hispanic female cleric leading the congregation???!!!). Years from now (I hope), this series will be mocked as a sick symptom of our time - a time so tongue-tied and intellectually chained by political correctness that facts can't even be publicly spoken about lest some (well trained by the school system) individual complains about being offended - as if facts need to be ditched if someone doesn't like them. Hey, let's rewrite all of history. Better yet - let's stop funding PBS since it has become little more than a propaganda wing of the extreme left.Movie Review: deserves the low ratings
Summary: 2 Stars
As many people did, I watched this following the far more interesting and enjoyable Frontier House. I agree that it was a complete disappointment. The producers clearly couldn't get a handle on it when it went off the rails and the "experiment" never recovered, it just kept getting worse. In the end, you find yourself watching it just to mock some of the participants and waiting for the inevitable new low. At some point, someone at PBS should have pulled the plug on this. I'm not sure why they didn't, but the end result is a show that just limps along, failing to educate, entertain, or otherwise fulfill any useful purpose.Movie Review: stop the bickering and follow the rules!
Summary: 2 Stars
This Colonial House was my least favorite of all the House series. The volunteers were not well chosen because they belly ached and refused to make it an authentic experience. Some did not play by the time period rules--very aggervating. I would love to be a part of these experiments and I can't stand when someone wastes the opportunity.
While still a fascinating series, I wasn't drawn in like some of the other House series because of the constant conflict.
Movie Review: What We Have Lost Since The 17th Century
Summary: 1 Stars
I agree that this show should have been stopped immediately upon the participants first refusal to truly live as 17th century colonials, dependent upon one another for their very survival, and to use the show for their own personal agendas. Were these "participants" paid to be on this show? If so, they were hired to do a "specific" job, and that was to live exactly as colonials of that time would have lived. From the very first moment it became very clear that the participants had come with their own agendas, and once they saw that the producers of the show were not going to intervene and fire them for breach of contract, they all jumped on the bandwagon and each felt the right to promote their personal agendas as well as the Voorhees had done - and they were obviously out to do as they damn well wished, and to use the show to tell everyone of their personal beliefs and desires, and to tell us how they resented their actual station in modern day life. He resents being a salesman when he fancies himself to be so much more intelligent and able, yet what he is, is led around by his wife and knows better than to confront her and tell her she is wrong. This show wasn't meant for us to watch their opinions of life in 17th century and their opinions of themselves and others today - it was to live as colonials actually lived - and such shenanigans would not have been permitted to even begin at that time. In fact, everyone would have been out in the field and on the water, etc from sun-up to sun-down to grow and gather food, supply payment to the "company" back home, to build sound and survivable homes for everyone and nobody would have any time to "promote" their own political, social, or class agendas. Everything would be totally concentrated on getting prepared to survive the approaching winter - life in that time for a small colony just being started would have been totally focused on staying alive! And the Voorhees who are so proud of their stance against everything, and Jonathon who is so proud of coming out and announcing his homosexuality (which I fail to grasp why anyone then, or now, needed to know about that?), and the college professors who felt they had to share with us that they were the most "learned" of the group and that being the "natural teachers" of college students should have made them the clear, obvious selection to be the "Governor" and his wife, and when they finally wrenched their way into that position, they set about to "teach" and expose the ignorant colonists to class and society of college professors of today. And I really resented that producers of the show were so intimidated by this group that they didn't even dare to tell them in the final assessment, what we all knew - that their colony most certainly would have failed - most of them would have died that winter of starvation, exposure, and disease, and those who did survive would have been shut down and shipped home as failures because they didn't even attempt to try to pay their debt to the company! They also whimped out when they didn't make it very, very clear that the Voorhees would probably been hung,imprisoned, or shipped home along with Jonathon who probably would not have made it out of that church service alive after his little "announcement", and the idiot who just had to wander off alone to a bar in town would have been lost in the woods that day or eaten by bears and all other wild animals, or killed by Indians - he would not have dared to wander away in a time when the forests around their colony was not cleared, there were no streetlights or night light coming from homes, no roads, no bars!! - it would have been pitch dark in a wild, untamed countryside and no colonists in his right mind would wander away - and certainly would never "wander back" the next day after leaving his fellow colonists toiling from dawn to dusk just to live, so he could "find" himself in a bar. He probably would have been hung, imprisoned, or sent home immediately as well. I won't even get into leaving the work in the middle of the day, or refusing to attend church on Sunday, to all go skinny-dipping together - and for father, mother, and child to go skinny-dipping together anywhere,any time would have been grounds for hanging as heathens and evildoers. They would not have been so "bold" in 17th century colony to do or express any of those things that went on. And they failed to grasp the reality that it is because of those colonists and their discipline and heroic,unceasing work and dedication to survive and thrive, that they have such "freedom" and "time" to not go to work, to not attend church, to not cover themselves from head to toe, to possess and express their "snobbery" about their perceived "class-standing" and "rank in society" today, to announce to the world their sexual preference without fear of immediate death, to share (without being asked to do so)and to prove to everyone that they "denounce" their Catholicism that they were raised in, their refusal to "compromise" regardless of how it affects anyone outside of themselves - and all of the "freedoms" each one of them showed us during the program, that they "insist" on maintaining and practicing irregardless of its effect upon their neighbors, their society, their other family members - indeed their right, and their "most selfish" indulgances, to do all of that today is owed, in part and parcel, to those very same colonists and their perseverance and their willingness to rein in their own wants,desires, and needs for the sake of and survival of, the colony, that they can each make it clear to everyone that their first and last regard is for themselves, for "ME, ME, ME!" and my neighbor, my family, my fellow man be damned attitude they took such delight and insistance upon practicing - they have all of that today; but now, having seen it before my own eyes in all of its disgusting and repulsive self-centeredness, that I wonder, might not their colony (with all its harsh struggles) be the better of the two? Perhaps that was the intent of the producers, and the reason they allowed the differences to surface, and the reason they did not step in and demand performance of contract by this group of people; in stepping back and allowing it to run, might not they have taught us so much better of the differences between then and now by letting it show itself - and in so doing, make us all so very ashamed of ourselves - we owe so much better of ourselves to the colonists of that 17th century!!!Movie Review: Rewriting history to reflect liberal PC harangue
Summary: 1 Stars
Most of the PBS/BBC "house" reality shows are excellent. They are realistic, thought provoking, and humbling - not to mention wildly entertaining.
Colonial House fails to deliver on all levels. It does not entertain or teach or humble. Instead it inspires only disgust - disgust in the players, the producers, and the sponsors of this pathetic project. PBS started with a brilliant idea and then threw it away to appease a bunch of whining, shrieking liberals (not all of whom appear on camera, I'm sure).
This program is SUPPOSED to be about recreating a New England colony in 1628. Instead, it becomes yet another vehicle for hate filled liberals to spew their venom. Several of the participants exist only to whine and cause trouble. The spirit of the colony and the impact of the history lesson is bowled completely under by their selfishness and stupidity. There is no chance to understand, let alone sympathize, with what life must have been like for real colonists, we're not really given a chance to even see what life was really like. Instead, PBS shows us what life would have been like if people then were as self-centered as they are now.
An atheist family refuses to follow the rules for Sabbath worship and a gay man outs himself in the middle of church. Then they want applause and accolades for such "bold" choices. These selfish few run roughshod over the other participants, who are forced to choose between remaining true to the spirit of the project and the complete failure of the colony since the egomaniacs refuse to pull their weight unless the group gives in to their demands. What a bunch of spoiled babies!
I'm all for freedom of choice - in 2005. But it wasn't like that in 1628, as these people undoubtedly knew before they signed on. To turn this program into yet another politically-correct sob story does a great disservice to the viewer AND the original colonists who actually had to live in conditions these people can't even pretend to endure.
Disgusting. I wish I could give negative stars.