Neil Lovell

I started this show, and nearly turned it off during the intro scenes. Once I heard "Cleopatra was black," I struggled through the first episode. I don't care what the actor's race is if they tell the story according to historical tendencies (it is a documentary??) Calling Cleopatra black for political and social sake is not documentary. While it is okay, even good, for historians to question our interpretations of the past, such assertions are problematic. Firstly, the Ptolemaic Dynasty came from Greece. They may not be pale skinned, blue eyed, Northern Europeans, but they're not black. While there was some intermarriage between native Egyptians and the Ptolemies, Egyptians (like most North Africans) are more olive in complexion. Cleopatra may have been darker looking than previous generations believed, but we can't throw away facts for what someone's grandma said. Secondly, there is a severe lack of Egyptians talking about their history. American historians inserting their own political and historical agendas is not documentary. It's fiction or a mirage of the truth. And finally, issues of race are not the only political insertions of this piece. While Cleopatra is an impressive female ruler, the overtly feminist lens here does not represent the complex and full picture of Cleopatra. She was married to her brother because Egyptian peasantry would not accept a female leader easily, even if in moments some women pharaohs reigned. We can't create a woke history just for wholeness sake. Similarly, her relationships with Caesar and Antony have been colored as fanciful romances. Some truth may exist, but she was also desperate to hold onto what power she had, and ended up leaning on Roman support. Her reign ended the last Egyptian dynasty. Although fascinating, is that failure really symbolic of all the feminism they're trying to portray?

I came across this show by accident. I study history, specifically the American West. Yeah, this is reality TV show, I shouldn't get too excited. I'll give it credit, the landscape scenery is often stunning. For the most part, the show is a myth/romaniticization, even a modern fraud, of mountain men. I was expecting less help from the modern world... Wow was I mistaken, new jeeps, trucks, atvs and the liek galore, expensive new rifles and equally expensive scopes. Sure, they're living off of the land, but it's not exactly reminiscent of the American West or mountain men. Its a bunch of dudes playing dress up in the wilderness. More often than not, they have an exploitative and warped sense of nature. One guy in Wyoming was shooting coyotes to protect his bison herd... Full grown bison need protecting from a medium/small dog? Yellowstone researchers show bison makes up .2% of coyotes diet. A few shooting scenes are probably good audience material, but ridiculous and an unnecessary portrayal of a misunderstood ecosystem. In a few rare moments they do provide some "history." Processing hides, like one with bison, showed actual scraping with stone tools. Cool!! More of that, less modern tools, some actual history and research, and you might have me watching.