TV Program Inaccuracies

If it's the Tate Museum, no problem.

Well the program is produced by Optomen Productions which has a British sister that is actually older than it's American cousin, so some of the graphics may have been shared....In any case it's an interesting show and is factually based, though dramatic reenactments do tend to take liberties, it's all for entertainment purposes....If you want reality you can search the subjects at your library or online, for another point of view...but short of being there, which can still be disputed, that's as good as it gets....probably...

You can't miss the British spring buffers and no cow catcher on the engine, supposedly on a railroad in America. It was running on a single track. I believe the same train was used on a history channel program about "men who made America" series. I had a friend who was an expert on guns. He could tell if a firearm used in a movie was the correct vintage for that era. I have found inaccuracies in programs depicting U.S. Navy ships; radar on ships that were not of that era. I know most people would not realize the difference, but some people do and it can be annoying, especially if it is repeated over and over. I once wrote a letter to a producer of a TV show pointing out the inaccuracies that I had noted. His apologetic reply was, they used stock footage to save money and that they felt nobody would notice.

Many shows and documentaries will use stock footage to fill in gaps or show transitions between scenes. One could probably make a pretty good documentary using only stock footage as it is available on most any subject.

We enjoy watching it. Some of the stories are interesting, but some are pretty hokey, but I guess they all describe something at a museum somewhere. Sometimes the object is somewhat of a stretch of the story it represents. British trains pass oncoming trains on the left, like road traffic. I suppose that would be a giveaway.

I will watch it more closely next time.

That sounds questionable, no matter what hemisphere or country might be involved.

British trains pass oncoming trains on the left, like road traffic here in the US. (International forum)

:-)

Sorry, should have said oncoming traffic.

I was once told by a British friend that the reason there are more tornadoes in the US is because oncoming traffic is passed on the right, seeding counterclockwise air vortices, and the same effect in Australia where they drive on the left.

I believe it's on Netflix that I saw, it's has a coup,e of seasons, if I recall, and nothing recent.

Inaccuracies in TV programs?

Surely not.

They are generally aimed pretty low, and getting lower every year. If you are at all competent in a field you will see endless inaccuracies.

The use of almost any hand tool is likely to be poorly shown.

Del

They have a thing called entertainment value that as hosts that is not only respected in their field, but because of their personality to make it even more entertaining as well.......... Bill Nyes, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michio Kaku to name a few.

There is also a new generation of these personalities which are also respected in their technical fields and are rather attractive...... and that alone should send ratings to through the cosmos,......... so to speak....

Nope... not heard of any of them...

Del

How arrogant of me..... My apologies ..... How about Brian Cox?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cox_(physicist)

Ah yes... he's an irritating git... a grinning jackanapes.

Although he does know his stuff.

Typical program:-

In this program we'll show you xyz.

But first blah blah blah, set the scene...

break for commercials

In the first part we showed you blah blah blah... be prepared to be amazed by xyz

Here are some fatuous cgi and predictions of what it could all be like/have been like.

another commercial break

etc etc...

eventually you get to see xyz and it it's usually old footage, stuff you knew anyway is is factually dubious.

another commercial break

Recap of all the crap we've been subjecting you to over the last half hour.

Most of these programs are fine if you are stuck in a hotel on your own in the middle of nowhere... at least they get you to sleep

Del (I'll go sit on the naughty step now... )

'Stephan Hawkins' then..... And I'm only saying that for my entertainment your giving me.

:-)

Stephan Hawkins the basketball player? or did you mean Stephen.

Ahhhh,.... I would say the physicist.

In which case it is Hawking rather than Hawkins.

Dr. Amy Mainzer.... and others....

Hey, THAT was the one I was thinking about...and the others......

Female Scientists are cool, and I'm not just saying that.....

Just one more reason not to like PhotoChop^TM.

Dr Maryanne Demasi PhD. Presenter on Oz TV show Catalyst.

I notice inaccuracies all the time, and as a student of history I find them mildly annoying.

My special interest is WW II aviation, and I see stock footage all the time even though it doesn't apply to the accompanying commentary. For example, a program talking about B-17 operations will sometimes contain footage of B-24s or even B-29s. And sometimes the commentary isn't consistent either.

There's not much that we as watchers can do about it except shake our heads. As was mentioned in other posts, I realize the programs are intended more as entertainment than a history lesson so I rely more on books and articles for factual information. And the use of stock footage vs accurate footage is a cost-saving or time-saving measure. Perhaps sometimes it is just laziness on the part of the producers or they just don't care about accuracy.

An example of good story vs good history is the movie "Pearl Harbor". It has some stunning visuals but on the attack they got some event timelines wrong. And the whole section about the Doolittle raid was mostly fabrication for the sake of the story line. The final dialogue about before the raid we knew nothing but defeat and then nothing but victory after it is also fiction. The tide of Japanese victories wasn't stemmed until the Battle of Midway in June 1942 (not April when the Doolittle raid took place). And even then it was not one American victory after another until 1944. Lastly the movie shows all the planes bombing Tokyo flying in formation. In fact each plane flew separately and bombed in sequence, not simultaneously. In all, four cities were bombed, not just Tokyo as the movie implied.