Customer Reviews

NOVA: Bone Diggers

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There's a documentary about a fish that Westerners thought was extinct, but people in Madagascar knew was alive and caught it often. My fifth grade teacher even read to her class about it decades ago. In the way that I'm excited about modern biodiversity, I'm excited about the past. If humans can learn more about extinct species that once lived in Australia, then great.

This work put the least interesting info first. Late in the work, they speak of how modern cat-scans can tell us things that anthropologists from a century ago could not know. That was refreshing, but all the wannabe-Indiana Jones stuff was not.

But this work tries too hard to be sensationalistic. The narrator says, "Once the anthropologist got a photo of the skeleton, he knew he had to act fast before poachers arrived." What poachers!? Set up some video equipment and make sure no unauthorized person enters your excavation area. Talk to local police and see if they can surveillance at the sight. See if your university or a philanthropist will pay for detectives and other people to make sure no one robs your find. Poachers get away with things in under-developed countries because those countries don't have the financial and technical resources to stop them. Plus, this is not a rhino or panda that moves around and could hide somewhere. That darn skeleton can't move on its own!

Next, the narrator says, "The team only has three weeks to obtain the skeleton." Why? Is it gonna get too cold or hot? Ask your university if it'll give you some parkas while you are digging? Talk to anthropologists in Alaska or Russia and get advice on how to do work in cold environments. Again, much ado about nothing!

The work shows anthropologists going into tiny holes in the ground by rope. Can't you ask the engineering department if they can find a way to blast a huge hole in the ground without damaging the fossils? In pyramids, they try to make spaces for experts to conduct work. You see ladders and shovels and stairways in Ancient Egyptian stuff, why not do the same thing Down Under? Australia is too rich and its universities have too many resources for things to be as difficult as they are portrayed in this documentary. I really think the work wanted to portray anthropology as if it were exciting as Harrison Ford's character. So unnecessary!

No disrespect to Australian accents, but they aren't heard that often in the US. The accents here were kinda distracting, if I'm allowed to be honest. It was hard to focus on the speakers' content when all I could think was "Shrimp on the barbie!" Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, and Geoffrey Rush just don't have accents that thick. In the same way that the documentary "Grizzly Man" was great but had a distracting German-accented narrator, I honestly think many American viewers won't concentrate as much because the thick Australian accents are going to attract their attention instead, MATE! G'DAY!