Pompeii: The New Dig

The story of Pomepeii, the Roman city preserved through its own destruction, will never cease to be fascinating. Much of the site remains unexcavated: modern standards mean work proceeds slowly, and one thing that stands out in this account of the biggest dig for years is quite how modest the objectives are: the uncovering of just one small city block. Even so, the dig still uncovers frescos (famously, one appearing to depict a pizza!), marble tables, reliefs, a mosaic floor, a fireplace and skeletons. The documentary breaks no new ground stylistically, but the literal breaking of ground it depicts keeps the attention nonetheless.

I just watched the first episode and I loved it! I thought the illustrations they used were beautiful (in the style of ancient frescoes) and a nice touch. I enjoyed seeing the variety of experts, such as the volcano guy and construction workers who were able to lend the insights of their trade--fascinating to see how it hasn't changed in thousands of years, but moreover I enjoy hearing from different disciplines. I liked how the theories evolved over time instead of staying static. I often find in history documentaries the theories would be static and the process to those conclusions wasn't shared, but here I felt like we got a better insight into their process and more information as to why they drew these conclusions. Excited to see the next two instalments!

Pompeii, the new dig

I was irritated from the starting credits, the narrator spoke as if everything was so amazing despite everyone knowing about Pompeii, and they have been digging there since the 1740's, hardly new is it! Who was she speaking to, I have no clue.

The music irritated and so much time was wasted looking at unremarkable finds, we found a skeleton in a house, oh it's all so amazing, it was a disaster people died. I found this approach deeply patronising, if not antagonising, they should have sent Mary Beard to bring the romans back to life.

What really drove me mad was revisionist tropes on Roman society, I cannot believe it, this pathologist said she wanted to find out how this person died, duh! Volcanic eruption in 79AD. 30 mins in and we had seen nothing, learnt nothing from the new dig that we hadn't seen in the old dig, no explanation of finds, and the finds they showed us were most banal.

I think the approach of this series of programmes lacked history, the most casual comparison with Margaret Mountford's similar show reveals this series deficiencies in stark relief.

Episode 2 showed promise, establishing that largely the population of Pompeii had fled to surrounding towns and this is why there were no carts found in Pompeii Streets etc

Episode 3 plummeted again to the depths, of a 45 minute program we were 15 minutes in and we had seen nothing new, it was all padding and recap. We then had some strangest historian look at a charcoal drawing and then stating the drawer must have attended the amphitheatre in Pompeii, he must possess supernatural powers to deduce this, talk about overinterpretation

We were shown a whole array of objects that were not part of the new dig and were discovered years ago.

The whole showed lacked any proper historical analysis, the so called experts made inane comments, gladiators were the equivalent to footballers today, the population of Pompeii would not have known what a volcano was despite the Roman Empire lasting 1000 years and covering the known world.

At best this is a 3 out of 10 the whole thing needs redoing properly.

There is not enough material to justify 3 one-hour-long episodes.

The first episode already exhausts most of what they could reveal about the new dig-site, and starting in episode two, they begin to fill the time with completely unsupported speculation about the emotions of the people of Pompeii, and interpret outrageous stories into arbitrarily chosen small details - again without supporting evidence.

This is then further worsened by unnecessary and annoying BBC-narrator-style commentary of experts that are unaffiliated with the dig and just hog screen-time and -space rambling on about emotional and impactful topics and have no relevance beyond wowing emotionally unstable viewers into some sort of reaction.

There are better documentary series, this is not one of them.

I have been obsessed with Pompeii since I was a kid. Not only have I consumed every piece of media on it, but like other Pompeiiphiles, I've been crossing my fingers hoping that I'd live to see the last untouched part of Pompeii get excavated, after hearing for decades that it wouldn't be in my lifetime.

Then a miracle happened: archaeologists began excavating the last buried section of Pompeii. So far, it hasn't failed to disappoint, as news started reporting all the wonderful new finds (fully intact frescoes, an eatery and other other artifacts), as well as fresh new horrors (a victim whose head was squished by a gigantic block as he was trying to escape). However, news articles and short video clips can only do or show so much, so I was excited to see this documentary of the new excavations.

Well, what a disappointment! Pompeii: A New Dig is one of the most boring, plodding documentaries I have ever watched in my entire life. If you want to spend 80% of the time watching closeups of pumice stones being swept away with a brush while people awkwardly stand around pretending to have spontaneous reactions of surprise and phony conversations for the camera, this series is for you! If you want to hear the same basic information about the eruption that you've heard a million times (stuff so basic that it's in grade school science books), you'll also love this!

Another thing you will love is the fake aura of mystery, such as, "We found skeletons in these rooms. What happened to them? How did they die? Why did they hide in here?" If you are truly befuddled by such probing questions as to how and why victims of the Vesuvius eruption hid inside buildings and died, you'll be positively enthralled.

In all fairness to this documentary, I could be accused of being a jaded enthusiast who might know more than the average person about Pompeii. However, almost every Pompeii documentary I've seen managed to either have new information or present the tragedy in a fresh new way. This is the first one I've ever seen that presented no new information, and presented in the dullest way possible.

It was also shockingly inept. You'd think that this documentary would've opened up with the history of the excavations and given some insight into why they were being started again after so many decades. But there's no leadup to the dig, no insight into the logistics, potential issues or anything else. Just watch a closeup of pumice stones being brushed, hear the narrator gasp that, "The excavators uncover something that's never been seen before," hear faked reactions ("Mamma mia!") and interjections from an on-camera expert that repeat what we see and hear.

On that end, many of the experts they had talking on camera were either boring or inarticulate. They often rambled, constantly repeated themselves, stated the obvious, gave lame observations or reiterated exactly what we are shown in a shot. My favorite example of this is when the excavators unveiled a lararium with a relief of snakes. We clearly see the snakes, hear the excavators talk about them and the narrator say how unusual they are because they're sculpted. So what do we see next? An expert repeat what we just heard or saw, as in, "We've seen painted snakes before, but never sculpted snakes. We only saw two dimensional paintings. This is so unusual, to have snakes in three dimensional form!"

Other lame observations: "This homeowner really wanted to show his wealth and impress visitors." (No kidding! Isn't this what Pompeii was so famous for, for being a luxury resort filled with gorgeous villas?). "It didn't matter who you were when Vesuvius erupted." (How trite!) "This is a crime scene." (No, it's not.) "It's like 9/11." (Again, trite.)

The inanity only gets worse in the last episode, when a home bath is found. It was obvious that it was the size of a large jacuzzi, but the two experts had one of the most inane conversations anyone could have, something like, "Do you think they swam in there?" "No, there wasn't enough room. They most likely stepped in for a bit and then stepped out."

By the end of the series, I got a feeling of forced excitement, fake banter and a lot of filler. My guess is that the filmmakers were the wrong fit for this kind of documentary, lazy, incompetent or overestimated how much exciting footage they were going to capture in the two years they spent documenting everything. Whatever the case may be, this series set a really low bar on a subject that's had so many exceptional documentaries on it. The only thing I have high praise for are the graphics. The series got an artist who drew illustrations in the style of a Pompeii wall mural and that was really well done.

As I struggled to finish this fiasco, all I could think of was the amazing 1987 National Geographic special, In the Shadow of Vesuvius. This documentary set a golden standard to such an extent that it still packs a punch, even though it has old information. In it, you really get a sense of the excitement of the archaeological dig, well as a sense of scope and tragedy. Pompeii: The New Dig makes everything feel unremarkable, like you're witnessing a run of the mill construction site instead of an excavation. I hate to give such a well meaning series a bad review, but this didn't do this topic any justice, and hopefully a much better one will come along to do it.