WDYTYA alternative

[philipsearching]

I stumbled across an alternative to WDYTYA on youtube which Rootschatters might find interesting "Finding Your Roots" - a US series on PBS in which the host (a proper academic) sits down with a celeb, they look through documents and photographs (previously found by researchers and nicely presented in a binder)  and talk about what the celeb thinks or feels about the new knowledge.

In a 45 minute episode two celebs get the same amount of information which WDYTYA would take two episodes to convey - it doesn't have the froth and padding of WDYTYA - no travel shots with voiceover "Jane is going to Madrid to search for her great-grandmother's records" when what Jane is doing is meeting a researcher who has done all the searching and gives her a copy of a document.  On the down side, it doesn't give any sense of exploring places.

I'm not going to suggest that one series is better than the other.  All I will suggest is that you watch an episode and make up your own minds if you want to watch more (or not).

Philip

[smudwhisk]

The first two series of Finding Your Roots were broadcast in the UK on PBS America which is definitely on Virgin but not sure about Sky.  They haven't broadcast either of the last two series.  When I enquired the other year I was told it was because it hadn't got very good viewing figures here and they only had a small budget.  Considering it was made for PBS in the US, and I'm assuming PBS America in the UK is a subsidiary otherwise why use the name, you'd think it would be cheaper for them to broadcast programs made for PBS then purchasing them from others such as the BBC, which they have done.