In Further Back in Time for Dinner, a modern British family has their house converted each week to a decade of the early 20th century. They live in the environments, wear the clothes, loosely follow the social arrangements, eat the food, and always give their take on how the decade felt through this changes.
The show is entertaining and does offer some interesting insight. By seeing what got added and removed from the kitchen, and what they would have eaten, I got a new perspective on just how much had developed in the early 20th century - and also on how much the wars halted this development.
What's always disappointing about these shows (there are other covering different eras), though, is that they are a bit inconsistent with how they transport the family back in time. They go all out converting the home, their clothes, and their meals, yet this effort abruptly ends before saying anything about style or manners. It seems a bit pointless to dress them for the era when the hair and makeup are completely wonky. It's odd to focus in on the middle class family vs. working class servant dynamic but to completely omit almost anything else about class, and GENDER!
I guess it's meant to be an entertaining and light-hearted show, but one can't help but be suspicious of the historical accuracy if they think they can pick and choose what to represent. You can't really know what an era, say the 1930's, was like through a few superficial changes.
It's also odd that the mother of the family seems to have no idea how to cook in a show where the central focus is on how food changed through the period. If we are going to spend so much time watching her cook, that should be a key part of the casting.
Altogether it's a short and fun series worth watching, but also a missed opportunity for a genuine look back in time.
