Not everything on BBC is based on an Austen, Dickens or Hardy novel. Case in point: Bonekickers, a one-season, six-episode show from 2008. The program traffics in some high nonsense as it follows the adventures of a four-member team of swashbuckling archaeologists based at the University of Bath. One of the men scientists sports an Indiana Jones–style hat; the lead female digger pursues a secret obsession passed down from her mother. She also once had an affair with a teammate. And there’s a sexy young intern who makes some suspicious remarks. Each new find unearths not just artifacts but elaborate historical conspiracies and cover-ups, seen in costume-epic flashbacks. More often than not, an unknown cavern of impossible dimensions must be explored by rope and flashlight (with batteries that never go dead). The stories have a veneer of truthfulness but play fast and loose with English, Roman, Celtic and even American history. At its best, Bonekickers is fast-paced fun, but sometimes it can be too convoluted to bother keeping up with. The episode about an African American presidential candidate (British Obama-love in full evidence) who seeks his ancestor, an escaped slave who helped George Washington win the America Revolution, was beyond parsing. Behind-the-scenes minidocs are included in the set.
