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beltezam1939
Reviews
The Man in the High Castle (2015)
Much better than the book
This is one off the few series I've seen that is much better than the book. I love the series characters, but in the book I find them mostly annoying. Perhaps this is because I was listening to the audiobook and the narrator had some very annoying accents.
Bones: The Man in the SUV (2005)
Afghans are not Arabs!
There is a really glaring err in this episode. It totally mixes up Arabs and Afghans! Different area and culture. Afghans speak Farsi (Persian) or Pastoo. The only thing they have in common is religion and even then it is different sects.
Roman Empire (2016)
Mildly interesting
I really had two major problems with this series, and a lot of minor ones.
1). Why were most of the Roman men bearded? I've never seen statues of Romans with beards, and nderstoodvthey considered men with beards to be barbarians.
2). The cavalry are riding with stirrups. Stirrups were unknown in Roman days.
The Day of the Triffids (1963)
The original story was murdered
The book by John Wyndham "Day of the Triffids" is excellent. The British TV series based on the book,was also excellent. This 1962 version is terrible, full of unrealistic monstrous Triffids and with none of the social statements in the book and British series, 1981. The 1981 mini-series, which I saw first, was much more faithful to the book. Unfortunately, it is very hard to find the mini-series on DVD and it was only shown three times n the US, on the A&E channel which was not very good quality. It was one of those rare and wonderful productions, like the TENKO series, which was only shown on A&E and does not seem to be shown again since the early 90s.
The White Queen (2013)
Better than I thought at first
I guess I was not impressed the first time I watched it because it was written by Phillips Gregory, who has played rather fast and loose with some of my favorite historical figures. On second watching, it's not too bad. I wish they had spent a little extra on peroxide. Elizabeth was famous for her "silver gilt" hair, which must have been platinum blonde.
Another excellent book about Elizabeth Woodbille is by Rosemary Hanley Jarman, "The King's Grey Mare" the first in a whole series about Elizabeth and her descendants. They run a bit closer to actual history than Phillips Gregory's version.
Bones: The Source in the Sludge (2014)
The source in the sludge
I do wish TV shows which claim to be about Afghanistan would do a little research. The names of the Afghan girl and her brother were rather strange and even then, mispronounced, as was the city of Ghazni. The CIA guy and the Afghan, when Brennan and Booth came to the door, were speaking some language which did not sound at all like Dari or Pushtoo, the two main languages of Afghanistan, or any other language/dialect from that area. The girl talked about the education of women as though it was a totally strange concept in Afghanistan. In the 1970s many Afghan girls went to school and to the university. They dressed in European/American style and worked as doctors, nurses, teachers, secretaries, etc. there were female cabinet ministers. The country has been in turmoil since the Russian invasion. The Taliban took over after the vacuum left when the Russians pulled out and all the previous bands of freedom fighters went after each other. Then after 9/11 we invaded supposedly to get bin Laden who was hiding out there, but then we dropped the ball to go after imaginary weapons of mass destruction, which allowed the Taliban to build up again...the story is much longer and more complicated and I've gotten off the subject of the Bones episode....