trillianastra | "Don't mess with me, I'm an archaeologist!"

First things first, I've always been a bit of a history nut. I was even in the History and Archaeology Club at school (and yes, my school had one of those). Time passed, I went on to take History for both GCSE and A-Level. After leaving school, though I was studying a science course at university, I remained interested. I also discovered a new interest in the area of what I call "biblical" history - which means I read a lot of books by people claiming to know who "the real Jesus" or the "real Mary Magdalene" were, intermingled with general religious history.

So, roughly six weeks ago a new TV show aired on BBC One, under the... interesting name of Bonekickers. It's the new project from Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharaoh, better known as the creators of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes. Bonekickers, however, is about a group of archaeologists. I watched the first episode, and was excited to find that it centred around the Knights Templar - a particular interest of mine.

The programme itself was well-produced - at least decent performances from all the actors, a fairly good script. Also, there were "flashback" scenes to the period of the Templar-related find, which added more excitement to the mix. The characters also spent at least some time digging and working in a lab, so while the staff of Time Team were probably screaming "It's not like that!", from a layperson's perspective it seemed (slightly) more accurate than Lara Croft or, dare I say it, Indiana Jones.

(One teeny gripe: The first episode involved the discovery of the True Cross. IN ENGLAND. Though there was an explanation of sorts, I can't even begin to pick that apart.)

The six-part series continued, with the Find of the Week being variously some Maroons on an island in the Bristol Channel, the crystallised corpse of Boudicca (yes, you read that right) underneath the Roman Baths at Bath, a Babylonian relic that can supposedly bring about peace in the Middle East, and the bones of Joan of Arc.

This brings us to the sixth episode, focused very heavily on the works of Tennyson. The episode begins with the discovery of a (later found to be fake) Round Table. After an increasingly convoluted trail of connections, the story leads us to Wells Cathedral, and none other than Excalibur itself, which has apparently been wielded by every well-known king and emperor for quite some time before Alferd Tennyson hid it under the aforementioned cathedral. The episode did, however, yield the immortal line "Don't mess with me, I'm an archaeologist!".

Overall verdict on "Bonekickers": It was fun, though a little silly at times. The cast did a good job with what they were given, but to be perfectly honest the creators should probably leave archaeology well alone and stick to making more shows with Gene Hunt in.

(Further info on Bonekickers can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonekickers)

PS. Doctor Who/Torchwood fans may be interested in this. One of the main characters, Vivian, is played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who also played Tish Jones in season 3 of Doctor Who. Burn Gorman (Owen Harper in Torchwood) also appears in the fourth episode "Lines of War".