Telly Box Tuesday – Survival

This week I am going to just concentrate on two of the programmes I have been watching, partly as after a busy week I have had to watch on catch up and secondly because I did not realise that one of the programmes had multiple episodes within the week.

First up Wolf Hall…

The end of last week saw Cromwell fall into the arms of his late wife’s sister who is also married this week they must end the relationship as her mother has discovered the truth but his personal life is nothing to the intrigue which is beginning to grip the court.

Allegations are made against Anne Boleyn by an ex admirer Henry Percy, who claims they were betrothed, Anne would eventually fall foul of the rumours when she failed to produce a son, but for now it is Cromwell who comes to her aid.

It is interesting watching the portrayal of Anne of Cleeves, watching a woman fight for her marriage, unable to see that fate is against her. One wonders if she had known the fate which awaited her successors she would have accepted her own fate of banishment more easily.  It is so easy for us to forget at times that what we watch as a drama and history was once the real lives of those involved.  We are again entering an age where religion is focused more on being divisive than uniting people, sadly maybe it reflects that certain elements of society have not developed and still believe their belief in their own deity gives them the right to judge and inflict pain and suffering on others be that pain mental or physical. We watch historical dramas for pleasure but possibly we should look to take more from them and be reminded of the horrors of the past to remind us from where we have come.

Next up 10000BC

There were two programmes this week, not sure if that will be the same every week or if this is just because it is early days…

I really like the idea of this while fully accepting I could not do it.  Only a couple of days in and the squabbling as started, there are people who believe they know better than the instructors and rather than following the advice they have been given decide to hunt large animals straight away rather than getting to grips with smaller animals first.  Some of the arguments are to really be expected when you put a group of strangers together but it does not bode well that they cannot discuss and resolve a simple issue such as talking too loudly at night without it threatening to boil over.

The camp already is divided between the huts but the one issue they are united on is the desire for food. Some have already started consuming more than there fair share. The one issue that made me feel queasy was that someone had actually defecated in camp rather than going to the assigned toilet area, this is only four days in to the eight week stay and does not show either the respect for their camp mates or consideration for the general health of the group.

The second episode of the week sees them reach breaking point, a fishing party fails to add to their meagre resources and the lack of food takes it toll on morale.  I think that in some ways is the part that most of us would find hard initially, after all most of us only have to walk to the kitchen to grab something to eat, the increase in urban foxes and seagulls in land is a testament to the amount of food we throw away on a daily basis. I know that the human body can obviously survive on far less than most of us eat each day but the fact in this show they are having to switch to an almost starvation diet and do more physical labour than most are used to does seem a little bit of a failing, maybe they should have been holed up somewhere for a week or two first and had their food intake gradually reduced, it would have made the social experiment more valid though of course made less exciting TV.  Personally remove my caffeine cold turkey and I would probably have beaten a fellow camp mate to death with a tree branch Fawlty Towers style.