Europe's Last Warrior Kings

This programme was so disappointing. A factual documentary giving all the details of the Norman Conquest has long been needed but although an attempt was made to cover the various angles it just didn't work. The idea of three historians, each 'playing' one of the three contenders for the throne (Hardrada, Godwinson and William) and arguing their cause with each other was bizarre and didn't fit in with the acted scenes that were shown alongside. On a more positive note, the programme did give very fair and unbiased accounts of all three and just didn't portray William as the 'bad guy' which is how he is normally seen.

The year 1066 was a fascinating year, but this doc was very dull and bland. I have never thought that Dan Snow was that good a presenter or historian and consider his success mainly due to his father's influence. I saw one of his docs on the Battle of Britain and he clearly did not have any detailed, or even superficial, knowledge of the event. Compared to Michael Wood (say) he lacks charisma and the ability to inspire his audience.

This drama/doc contained many omissions and the tension /dialogue/drama between the three decent historians enacting the motives, thoughts and actions of the three main characters did not really work because it was all a bit insipid and wooden. Some good shots of armour, ships and the landscapes though.

Being a BBC production it had to be politically correct and make some characters black, which was not only irritating but undermined any credibility concerning the facts presented.

Give it a miss.

I stumbled upon this on BBC Iplayer and thought it sounded decent. What it is, is 3 episodes of a host giving information on said subject and actors acting it out.

The information was decent but came across cringy as he tried to inject some excitement ininto it.

Then we had 3 people stood at a computer pretending to be the combatants of this battle giving their reasons on why they were invading.

Give it a miss

When a "documentary" trying to be factual inserts a black actor as the right hand man to William, it completely undermines the entire credibility of what they are presenting and turns it into a joke. There were no Africans in England or Normandy at that time, and not for another 500 years at least. Why not use a talking pig? Or a little green man from outer space?

This documentary is about the fateful year 1066 and is composed of three separate parts:

1. An historical reconstruction of the events, with actors playing the main parts in costumes 2. Dan Snow, the presenter, visiting locations where the events took place, and 3. Three historians "playing" the parts of William, Harold, and Harald and who debate their strategies in what looks like a dimly lit cellar with a large interactive map of Britain

This last bit was quite bizarre and unnecessary since the strategies of the three kings could have been explained in a different way.

All this, interspersed with the occasional intervention of a guy who wrote a book about the Normans invasion based on an ancient book found in Brussels, made the rhythm of the documentary uneven.

Finally, as mentioned by others, the fact that in the reconstruction with actors, William's right hand was an African guy added a surreal touch to the whole documentary, seasoning it with an unnecessarily large portion of "woke".

Still, most likely that in the next documentary about William the Conqueror, the man himself will be from Senegal or Sudan.