Colonial House

[Matty Bottles]

Well, I saw three hours of Colonial House on PBS last night. All I have to say: to many freebies, too much incompetence. I remember Hawkyns said something about associates of his volunteering for the show and being turned down. Well, I have to say that "Colonial House" seems to be far more "reality TV" than the superior (and entertaining) "Frontier House."

Some observations:

Too many freebies. The houses were built for them, the natives spoke english, and there seemed neither any attempt nor urgency to try to do things in a time appropriate manner. "Frontier House" had its anachronisms, but the pioneers spent the first winter in a tent, because they didn't get their house built in time.

Too much pre-calculated drama. Although certainly not a cheery walk in the park, a Puritan Colony probably would have members who were mostly like-minded about religious and social mores. They seem to have concocted this group with conflict in mind. I'm not saying there are rigid moralists or complete libertines in the cast of this show, but it does seem as though there are people who have very different ideas of church, very different ideas of women's status, and very different commitments to re-enactment. I'd rather see something more authentic.

I was entertained, and it is nice to see shows like this, but this seemed weak.

We should make our own reality series. No stupid contests or watered-down trials and tribulations. Just people doing piratey things in the pirate-y way. You want someone off the vessel? They can get captured by the royal navy or merchantmen the producers send after them. They get captured, they loose, including a sham trial and re-enacted hanging, using a stunt harness. And whoever wins, and backstabs, drinks, and betrays his way to wealth and safety, wins a prize delivered entirely in dry goods he has to trade for cash. That's a show!

[Bully MacGraw]

Yer too bloody harsh mat!

Good show, good people. The weakness is in the editing perchance.

Now ye brought up something! We need a pyrate chalenge. to see who is the king-o-the-pyrates!

Events could be rapier duel, target shooting with flint locks. Competing big gun teams. The wet bodice contest and a contest to see who could drink the most rum without dieing!

Cheers

MacGraw

[Captain Goodwench]

And the prize for being King o' the pyrates would be????

Me! The Pirate Queen! LOL

[Sjöröveren]

I'm more in agreement with Bloody Jack. Too many contrived situations, such as the concservative preacher as governor and the liberal theologian as the lay minister. Or indenturing a servant to the one couple he had asked not to be put with. Seems like a set up for TV. Why not just put them together without these modern contrivances, and see what happens? I'd rather watch real situations that one planned by a producer.

I was also disappointed that they only gave 30 seconds (at most) to their training at Plimouth Plantation. At least Frontier House devoted 10 minutes or so. Hope they add more time in later episodes.

I think a Pirate reality show is a great idea. I was hoping Survivor Pearl Island was going to be more piratical, but it really just used it as a backdrop (though Rupert is definate a Member of the Brotherhood at heart)

I think we should do it. Who says it has to be on TV? If we do it well enough, we'll make the news!

In a bizarre 'life imitates art' incident, a Royal Navy vessel was boarded today by several dozen pirates armed with muskets and cutlasses...

:angry:

[JoshuaRed]

I was going to come post about Colonial House, and someone already took care of it! :)

I was thrilled to see they chose to film the series right here in Maine, about an hour from my folks' house. But it does seem like something is "off" about it. I'm not crazy about the participants.

A pirate reality series would be great, and I wouldn't be surprised to see one someday. Imagine all the "office politics" on board a ship afloat...combined with challenges to find and "capture" other ships...it would be great!

[Zorg]

Hmmmm....the Pirate reality show, eh?

I thinks we can manage this....

In fact, I thinks we DOES manage this....

um, Hey Royalist, kin we use yr boat? :) There seem to be enuf of us film and video production types about on this board to make the whole thing happen.

:) :angry:

[Matty Bottles]

Actually, I think Royaliste already suggested something like this the "Beyond Pyracy" section. I should've checked. Last night's installment was better, now that everyone is sort of gelling. Sort of.

[Zorg]

I've got to agree with a lot of the other comments here: The producers do seem to have deliberately stacked the participants for conflict. Putting a fundamentalist minster of any stripe in charge of ANY diverse group is likely to be a receipe for rebellion.

It may make for great false drama, but it really gets in the way of both the experiment and revealing aspects of 17th century life.

They really don't think much of us out in TV land, do they.

[Zorg]

Who says it has to be on TV? If we do it well enough, we'll make the news!

In a bizarre 'life imitates art' incident, a Royal Navy vessel was boarded today by several dozen pirates armed with muskets and cutlasses...

Okay, I got it. We PRETEND to be setting up a historic recreation while actually creating our own pyrate fleet.

With the amount of money being thrown around at things like "Troy", it could be centuries before anybody knows they've been had.

[Zorg]

Events could be rapier duel, target shooting with flint locks. Competing big gun teams. The wet bodice contest and a contest to see who could drink the most rum without dieing!

Every try untying a wet bodice in a hurry? Now THERE's a competitive sport if there ever was one.

Its also why they invented cutting implements.....

:)

[John_Young]

Imagine all the "office politics" on board a ship afloat...combined with challenges to find and "capture" other ships...it would be great!

Office politics? Not bloody likely! Can you imagine like Suvivor All-Stars on a pirate ship with pirate rules?

"Where did Boston Rob and Amber go? And why are there sharks following our ship now?"

[Captain Tito]

I caught one episode where the one couple wouldn't come to the meeting. If it had REALLY been those times, they would have suffered a bigger social fate than they did, and the leaders wouldn't have been so worried about doing it as these men were. The law was the law then, and the heavy religious presence was part of everyday life. They didn't think, "O Gee, how can I do this" yadda yadda.

It wasn't so "made for tv" dramatic.

[SirJewelsCole]

Aye think it be a pathetic program and aye be offended that PBS has stooped so low tew be arin' such bildge muck. We ave' been bombarded with reality tv and quite frankly its all pretty bad. TV was once and still is for some tew escape reality. Thats what it purpose be. Not tew mention all of the gold coin aye paid in tribute all of the years in order tew keep Sesame Street on the air. There'll be no more of that! Shame on PBS! says aye. Iffin' any of ye be thinkin' about avin' pirates on a reality show it should be them a huntin' down all of the players on the shows an ........ take their sharp blades and......well you know be piractical

[DuCouer]

I must admit I was really anticipating this show..I mean c'mon it's the 17th century. I was however really disappointed in the cast, and the fact that it was puritan colony. If the year is 1620..Wasn't Cromwell in power already? Wasn't puritan rule in England absolute and the Royalist being thrown out? I am so tired of ever one pitying the poor puritan...ooo they were cast out due to their religous beliefs...Bull the bloody Roundheads were thrown out and their leaving was applauded because of their..uptightedness(?). For crying out loud they beheaded the king then seized all of the land, both in England and the colonies (for a great book read Dudley Pope's Buccaneer.)

all that aside, I am looking forward to more episodes....hopefully it will touch on some of the historical inconsistancies.

And it they are casting for a pirate reality series...I'm in...

[Sjöröveren]

Every try untying a wet bodice in a hurry?  Now THERE's a competitive sport if there ever was one.

No, but I would very much like to try.

[Zorg]

I must admit I was really anticipating this show..I mean c'mon it's the 17th century. I was however really disappointed in the cast, and the fact that it was puritan colony. If the year is 1620..Wasn't Cromwell in power already? Wasn't puritan rule in England absolute and the Royalist being thrown out? I am so tired of ever one pitying the poor puritan...ooo they were cast out due to their religous beliefs...Bull the bloody Roundheads were thrown out and their leaving was applauded because of their..uptightedness(?). For crying out loud they beheaded the king then seized all of the land, both in England and the colonies (for a great book read Dudley Pope's Buccaneer.)

all that aside, I am looking forward to more episodes....hopefully it will touch on some of the historical inconsistancies.

And it they are casting for a pirate reality series...I'm in...

Actually, nope, the English civil wars (all 3 of em) began in the 1640's.

What I find distasteful is the concept that a commercial colony would be run as a religious oligarchy. My suspicion of what I know of the smaller colonies, especially from those in Canada, was that "terrible accident" happened a lot to governors who got on the last nerve of the pioneers. That was an independant lot, and I can't frankly see them putting up with it. One reason a lot of the Puritan colonists "went native" was to get away from the likes of the Mather family (who, it should be noted, were one of the main reasons Ben Franklin had to skedaddle out of Boston, much to that city's loss.)

On the whole, Im mostly disappointed as to how little of the technology and methods of the era were explored in favor of a rerun of MTV reality soapopera in waistcoats...llll

[Hawkyns]

I must admit I was really anticipating this show..I mean c'mon it's the 17th century. I was however really disappointed in the cast, and the fact that it was puritan colony. If the year is 1620..Wasn't Cromwell in power already? Wasn't puritan rule in England absolute and the Royalist being thrown out? I am so tired of ever one pitying the poor puritan...ooo they were cast out due to their religous beliefs...Bull the bloody Roundheads were thrown out and their leaving was applauded because of their..uptightedness(?). For crying out loud they beheaded the king then seized all of the land, both in England and the colonies (for a great book read Dudley Pope's Buccaneer.)

all that aside, I am looking forward to more episodes....hopefully it will touch on some of the historical inconsistancies.

And it they are casting for a pirate reality series...I'm in...

Well, .....no. Charles I has just come to the throne. The English Civil War starts in 1642, Charles isn't beheaded until1649. Cromwell (ptuigg) doesn't desolve the Rump and become Lord Protector until 1653.

However.... the rumblings are there, there is already bad blood between the Puritans and the Church of England. No pity forthe Puritans on my part laddie, they have still not received all they deserve for the way they screwed up England and the Colonies. Religious freedom my left buttock. They just wanted to enforce their will on everybody else.

In truth, there was a fair amount of religious tension in the colonies. Not everyone was a puritan, there were a good number of C of E members who were just over here for the money. New England bought intoi the Puritan BS. The Virginias did not. Maryland, under the Calverts, was, for all intents and purposes, a Catholic colony. But certainly, in a New England puritan colony, you would toe the line or suffer in one way or another.

All in all, the show sucked. It was set up to create fights between the participants in the name of drama. The people weren't shown how to wear their clothing and it showed. Tool skills appear to be mostly unknown among this crew. And how can you starve in New England in summer, with a thousand acres of land, a boat, and a sea full of fish?

BS- the lot of it.

Hawkyns

[Rumba Rue]

Aye I agree with all of you on your posts about how not like it should be. But, what you have all failed to see is why it's not working.

We here in our respective countries that we come from, are spoiled.

We have running water, flushing toilets with soft toilet papers, so many modern conviences, and things that get us around instead of horses we have motor vehicles. We as a whole have gotten use to these things and generally take it for granted.

You can't take a today's person and place them in a setting such as Colonial House and expect it all to be as it was. We have a modern mindset that wasn't present back then. This is something I've witnessed in many of these type of shows, and unfortunately, it's something we can't get away from, we are born of it.

Had we been born of that era, of course we wouldn't do the things or think the things we do now, we'd follow the course laid out at that time.

Same goes for us who go to events, set up an encampment and expect the public to see us as people from another era. Only the costumes, particular way of speaking, mannerisms learned from books, and other actors simply represent a period. Let's face it, after the event closes for the day, we quickly re-vert back to our common time period without a thought of wearing that tight corset or lugging around several pounds of weaponry.

So is the case with the people of Colonial House, they can't forget their modern upbringing, and who can blame them? Given any of us in the same circumstances, we too would react the very same way with the very same modern ideas of how to do things. I know some here will say,"Well I could do that!"

I have no doubt that after two weeks most of you would fail and want to quit.

It was a very hard life back then, and we should thank our ancestors for bringing us into the modern world.

I like watching shows like Colonial House, it may not be totally accurate, but I give big kudos to those who volunteer to do these type of shows. They get no pay, but they do get a sense of what it might have been like, and it brings a sense of understanding of one's self that wasn't there before. We are of the Modern Age, and that won't change.

Rumba Rue

**If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence you tried**

[Hawkyns]

Same goes for us who go to events, set up an encampment and expect the public to see us as people from another era. Only the costumes, particular way of speaking, mannerisms learned from books, and other actors simply represent a period. Let's face it, after the event closes for the day, we quickly re-vert back to our common time period without a thought of wearing that tight corset or lugging around several pounds of weaponry.

Rumba Rue

mmmmmm.........

Sorry, Rumba Rue, not true, not with the crowd that I hang with anyway. If anything, we become more period correct after the public is gone. Then we don't have to keep stepping out of character to answer stupid questions, or maintain a politically correct attitude so as not to offend the punters. We go to musters where we maintain a 24 hour guard mount, sing all the period songs after dark, go back to period speech and syntax. There are musters where we are tactical for 4 days straight, 24 hours, with night battles, scouts, and landings. I have done 2 weeks and been damn sorry when it was over.

I have lived in Plimoth Plantation and other historic sites, living the life after the public and paid staff has gone home. It's when there are only re-enactors about that the magic kicks in and the 21st century slips away. Would it work for 5 months? Don't know but I can easily name 24 people who would love to try.

Yes, we are 21st century people. Are we happy and comfortable in this century? That's another story. There's a good number of us out there who feel really out of time, who put up with the 21st century, but never really feel comfortable. And no, I don't thank everyone who has brought us to this century. I deal with it, and I am proficient enough to earn a good living, but I really think I could be happy with a max tech level of around 1760.

Hawkyns

[piratelassie]

"Yes, we are 21st century people. Are we happy and comfortable in this century? That's another story. There's a good number of us out there who feel really out of time, who put up with the 21st century, but never really feel comfortable."

I wholeheartedly agree with you on that one Hawkyns

On a semi related note, it would be very interesting indeed to start a pirate reality show, then somehow off the camera men and turn real pirate. The ship would have been supplied by whoever is producing the show, and if we did succeed in getting rid of the camera men, we'd have a ship. Of course, it would have to be a real ship and not one of those barges covered with stuff that they sometimes use in place of ships...

Just a thought

[SirJewelsCole]

"Yes, we are 21st century people. Are we happy and comfortable in this century? That's another story. There's a good number of us out there who feel really out of time, who put up with the 21st century, but never really feel comfortable."

I wholeheartedly agree with you on that one Hawkyns

On a semi related note, it would be very interesting indeed to start a pirate reality show, then somehow off the camera men and turn real pirate. The ship would have been supplied by whoever is producing the show, and if we did succeed in getting rid of the camera men, we'd have a ship. Of course, it would have to be a real ship and not one of those barges covered with stuff that they sometimes use in place of ships...

Just a thought

Hawkyns, That should be inscribed on a stone er somthin' somewhere. Well said.

piratelassie, lets not ferget doin' away wit the rest of the film crew and oh ! even better we can arrange some kind of luncheon or the like where all of the hollywood big wigs will come out with thier blasted cameras and we could make a huge production out of it. Then we could stuff it down the viewers throats for like two months before it is due tew air, showin' all of the greatest kill scenes so nobody really needs tew watch it. Then, when t's actually set tew come on we will just pull it off the air n'go on account with thier ship.

[piratelassie]

'Tis a plan then, Sir Jewels

[JoshuaRed]

I think the producers are also going out of their way to portray Maine as being utterly cold, wet and gray nearly all the time....just to add the dramatic flair of "man vs. the elements".

In the summer months, even far eastern Maine is beautiful, warm and sunny with days in the 70s-80s and nights in the 60s. And the bugs are only bad in June. Especially high up on a dry hill that's getting the stiff ocean breeze up the channel.

[Rumba Rue]

As I stated, MOST would fail, but of course there's always those hearty souls who are determined to be worthy of such an endevour, such as Civil War re-enactors, and some other hard-core campers I know of.

I can't speak for other groups outside of Calif. but here at the Ren-faires and such, I can guarantee you, after hours, we are very much into modern life, that includes trips to the brought in 'outhouses' that are cleaned (well they are suppose to be cleaned) every day.

Here, especially in Southern Calif. when the tempetures get up in the triple digits, the last thing a person wants to be wearing are heavy costumes and we breathe a sigh of relief after the event is over when we can don something lighter.

Rumba Rue

**Been there, done that**

[Hawkyns]

Interesting. I've done some ren faire events around the northeast. We don't often get the triple digits, but humidity of 85% is fairly normal. Even at that, most of the folk I deal with stay in kit. Bodices and doublets may get dumped, but beyond that, we try and stay in period. Of course, if there's a lake, skinny dipping becomes the order of the day. Shifts and shirts, breeches and skirts are still the preferred kit. Changing to shorts and t-shirts is very rare.

Cultural differences, I suppose. And, as I say, I mostly hang out with the re-enactors, rather than strictly faire folk.

Hawkyns

DEFINITELY in the hard core camp.