TV Show Inspired By History

[chipper]

what is the name of the TV show where a family(?) were made to live in the past by affording them only the technology available in past centuries. for example, today they are suppose to experience 1600s. so they cannot use stove, tv, etc. they will only find items that were available in the 1600s. and soo on.

[will.15]

Are you thinking of 1900 House?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdhqGUWGzjc


Maybe you are thinking of the Later Colonial House with Oprah Winfrey.

[rufnek]

what is the name of the TV show where a family(?) were made to live in the past by affording them only the technology available in past centuries. for example, today they are suppose to experience 1600s. so they cannot use stove, tv, etc. they will only find items that were available in the 1600s. and soo on.

Don't know the name, but there was a whole series of such shows some years ago on the PBS channel. Think they were based on a British mini-series: There was one shot in London in the Victorian or Edwardian period. He dressed in a British military unform and went to work each day while the wife and kids stayed home and tried to cope with coal-fired stoves, laundry and meals.

There were a couple of US themed episodes. One involved a western homesteader type. Folks were supposed to build a cabin (or finish a cabin already half built, maybe), raise a garden so they would have food before winter and lay in a large wood pile so they wouldn't freeze during winter. Another was based on early colonists sent to the New World by some investment venture that staked them to passage by ship and some food to begin with and they were expected to form a colony and find something commercial they could send back to England when the ship returned that fall as the first returns on the venture's investment. There was even one with a working ranch and a bunch of cowhands in the Southwest.

Thing was, not a single one of the groups were able to cope. One homesteader family had a couple of teenage daughters that sat around and whined and wouldn't work longer than 10-15 minutes. Their dad was just as bad. They were always complaining about the heat and essentially ended up going around in what should have been underwear in 1860-1870, totally out of character. There was one guy--big black guy as I recall--who actually was a carpenter and pretty good handy man, but everyone kept wanting him to help them out to the point he finally just quit. The vegetable gardens were pathetic--I don't think those people could even grow weeds. No one wanted to blister their hands chopping wood so all would eventually have starved and frozen if they had to spend a real winter there.

The colonist settlement went to hell--almost literally. One of the things the supervisors told them up front is that this is supposed to be a religious bunch like the pilgrims and like the pilgrims, they were required to attend church services on Sundays or else end up in the stocks, whipped, branded, all the fun things the pilgrims used to do. Basically all they had to do was sit in the church for an hour or so listening to a period sermon, then they had the rest of the day off. But a week or two into the show this one couple (primarily the woman) start this "why do I have to go to church?" whine. Now in each case the participants were told up front what was expected of them, so why do they get into the program and suddenly announce they're atheists? They just became a major pain to deal with--no one was gonna whip or brand them, of course, but I kept hoping they would turn them out of the settlement and into the wilderness. They even had some Native Americans show up and try to help them some and trade with them, but the colonists never came up with anything worth trading and were either too dumb or too lazy to deal with the Indians. By the time their ship "returned" they didn't have a damn thing to send back, although one of the things the investors wanted was trees for ship masts (very small ships--we're not talking redwoods here).

The ranch program was probably the worst--certainly I saw less of it than the others. Basically it was set up where there's a family owned ranch in a remote area like West Texas or New Mexico. So you got the father as the ranch-owner and the wife and a couple of teenage daughters and then several young cowhands--all of them so dumb they didn't know which end of a branding iron to pick up. The cowhands were always horsing around and breaking things--one managed to spook his own horse who proceeded to pull the hitching post out of the ground. The waddie didn't like it much when his "boss" said you broke, you fix it.

I like reenacting and had I been younger and in better shape, I'd have loved recreating those periods just to see what it was like. I don't know where or how they recruited their participants, but most of these folks didn't even try, although they had been taught beforehand how to plow, rope, build, cook, dress for the various periods. In every case, the most useless participants were the teenage and younger girls. They were all whiners--I don't want to do that, why do I have to do this, where do we get hot water for a bath?

The guy who got the worst end of the deal was whoever the program director picked as the group's leader. The leaders --the governor/preacher of the colony, the ranch owner, and I forget who was "in charge" among the homesteaders--but they all had extra duties to perform and were supposed to direct and supervise the work that had to be done and somehow keep the peace among the group. And the others made their lives miserable. I think the colonists either revolted or else the head of the colony just abandoned his office.

The most overmatched people were the adult women who were supposed to be cooking and cleaning and washing. I think they all were reduced to tears at some points. I remember the Victorian mother was completely in over her head on what was supposedly laundry day although she had a period hand-cranked washing machine. She was still doing laundry when baking day came around and she was just about to flip. To help out, the program director brought in a maid to help her, but after a few episodes the maid quit because the woman was bossing her around and not trying to help with the laundry. In every case a short time into each episode, everybody was tired, mad, dirty, hungry, and totally incapable of doing anything to improve their way of living.

And in every case there was one young man who really pitched in and tried to do what was expected and tried to help the others, and in every case, the others pretty well sat back and were willing to let him do it all, until he finally pitched a fit and went to his cabin to sit it out, too.

It was an interesting concept, but they should have screened their participants better and gotten some who understand the meaning of a work ethic. Every one of the episodes I saw ended in total failure.

[will.15]

THere was also a British one called Manor House which was like Upstairs Downstairs. but with real people.

[honeykid]

ruf, I think they screened them and got exactly what they wanted. Sadly, these programmes are entertainment masquarding as docu-soaps or 'social experiments'.

[will.15]

I think Rufnek is describing Frontier House.

[chipper]

i found it! finally!

Colonial House
This is a reality show inspired by history, for a change. People were made to live the 1628 life where there were no TV and other forms of technology. They discover how people were forced to commune because there was nothing else to do. Their source of entertainment were community bonfire with dancing and singing. Among the points of dissension that arise in the colony were: the rigid class and gender roles, mandatory religious observance, and the puritanical civil laws of the era, particularly those pertaining to profanity. "Not only does 'Colonial House' capture the drama of everyday life in a small colony but it also shows how ordinary people cope -- or in many cases, don't cope -- when removed from all that is familiar and comforting to them in the modern world," said series producer Sallie Clement.

[rufnek]

ruf, I think they screened them and got exactly what they wanted. Sadly, these programmes are entertainment masquarding as docu-soaps or 'social experiments'.

You may be right. I never saw any list of criteria for choosing those people and not others. BUT...having said that, the show sponsors or the authorities behind the scenes made a big deal of bringing in experts of the various chores, tools, clothes, etc. of the time being recreated, so they should know how to use a wood-burning stove, hook up a plow and plow a field, chop wood, etc. Plus they then had historians come in at the end of the programs to judge how well and to what degree they had met certain requirements, like the prairie settlers having the shelters and enough wood chopped to survive the winter, or in the colonial village something of commercial worth to send back to the people in England who put up the value of their migration.

[rufnek]

i found it! finally!

Colonial House
This is a reality show inspired by history, for a change. People were made to live the 1628 life where there were no TV and other forms of technology. They discover how people were forced to commune because there was nothing else to do. Their source of entertainment were community bonfire with dancing and singing. Among the points of dissension that arise in the colony were: the rigid class and gender roles, mandatory religious observance, and the puritanical civil laws of the era, particularly those pertaining to profanity. "Not only does 'Colonial House' capture the drama of everyday life in a small colony but it also shows how ordinary people cope -- or in many cases, don't cope -- when removed from all that is familiar and comforting to them in the modern world," said series producer Sallie Clement.


Yeah, sounds like the colonial settlement I saw, right down to the dissension over wanting to skip church and curse. Think it would have been more interesting if they had gotten participants capable of coming out ot their comfort zones and really making an effort at participation. In none of the series I saw did the majority of people seem even to make a good-faith effort at trying to cope in a recreative manner.