1066: A Year to Conquer England

[dhtandco]

Historically accurate William lands at Pevensey with an aide who is black .Discuss?

BBC PC approach to TV history is just daft.

[Cubs]

Not impossible perhaps. The Normans were in Italy from the beginning of the 11th century and the Moors were in Spain from the 8th century, so there's plenty of reason to think black people worked in William's court and army.

[Old Guy]

The aide is neither Italian nor North African, only an actor.

[tomrommel1]

When will part 3 be out ?

[armchairgeneral]

When will part 3 be out ?

I believe it was last night. So I will pick it up on Iplayer.

[Madhouse Workshop]

Being in the States, I was not aware of this until I saw the posting here.  Visited youtube.  Its a good watch.  The messenger thing is imo a bit contrived.  I could very much do without the 3 so-called historians around the table, never heard of any of them.  But a nice bit of programming to watch all the same.  I see Giles Kristian also made an appearance in it, I've enjoyed his viking novels, while in between some Cornwell and Scarrow books.

[armchairgeneral]

Talking of Cornwell, really looking forward to the new series of The Last Kingdom tomorrow evening  

[Madhouse Workshop]

Yea I'm not sure we will see that on BBC America here in the states, I thought I read someplace that it might be on netflix or something.

[Emir of Askaristan]

Actually part three was disappointing I thought. Perhaps because it's the best known bit?
I thought it could have covered the completion of the conquest in more detail, what happened to Edgar, etc.

However despite that, the messsenger and the historians it was still pretty good.

[Norm]

Thought part three was pretty good, especially through the use of re-enactors and computer graphics, you get a real sense of what this battlefield and a clash of two armies might have looked like on the day. Agree that the post invasion commentary fell a little short, the absolute devastation of the north was not covered enough and the lack of significance given to the Doomsday project and total replacement of the key positions and institutions of church and state was an opportunity lost in explaining what invasion really meant.

The use of the historians failed as an experiment, which felt awkwardly shoe-horned into the program, strange really because having an element of docu-drama, we already had faces and voices of the three leaders in the form of actors and they could have adequately performed the role that the historians were given and this would have felt a bit more organic to the presentation.

Overall though, I thought the series was pretty good and I would like to see other topics given the same sort of treatment. It seems essential to me as a UK resident, that a general understanding of our most famous and significant battle and point in history is kept in the mind of the general population. There used to be a saying that every schoolboy knew of 1066 and of recent years I had started to doubt that, programs like this can only help in re-asserting adequate understanding of good history.

[Eric the Shed]

Yea I'm not sure we will see that on BBC America here in the states, I thought I read someplace that it might be on netflix or something.

It is a BBC and Netflix production - they were reviewing the series on the radio the other day

[tomrommel1]

Just saw part3 . I would have liked a Otherwise more info about the proceedings after the 14th of October .Otherwise very good TV production.