Long and dull. A stretch of credulity and patience. What they had to say, show, and prove could have easily been covered in a half hour...filled with commercial breaks.
It wasn't very impressive. They really milked a paucity of hard data for an over-long 'documentary' that was mostly handwaving. The DNA data was pretty much non-existent—one pair of bone fragments were compared and found not to match. Most of the story was an assurance that the conjunction of names found in the tomb couldn't merely coincidentally match the names found in the gospels…but they really had to reach to make excuses to turn "Miriamne Mara" into "Mary Magdalene", and they had one name, this "Judah" kid, that didn't match the biblical collection at all, so they just flat-out invented an unsupported tale of Jesus having a son. Flogging a link between some ossuaries stored in a warehouse (which did not look at all secure) for twenty years and a known forgery also simply obliterates any credibility the whole shebang might have.
And don't get me on the Dark Ages, on the History Channel...Yeah, right.
Maybe it is because it got me off, from the ads, on the wrong foot. But they seemed to jump passed or making a limited mention of some topics, and just seem to skip other times and events all together. Part of it is the structure used for the show. But, as well, it was written and produced from a distinctly Christian perspective. Christianity was supreme, Islam was a threat, Pagans were mean and didn't listen well, etc. Would it really have hurt to discuss the events of the Moorish expansion from the Iberian perspective? Or the Moorish? How about the pagans hunted and driven back by the Franks? What about their story?
And why were so many miracles, played out as such. How about some historical freaking analysis, for the origins of the tales. Were they trying to kill Benedict? Or was it an origins tale to build him up as he began his cause?
So many questions. So much left untouched in this big two hour event.
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