Upscale viewers who wouldn't be caught dead watching those tacky network reality shows such as Survivor or Big Brother can still play the voyeur with PBS's entry into the put-a-bunch-of-humans-under-the-microscope sweepstakes, The 1900 House. Here's the pitch: Find an old house, remove all traces of the 20th century, stick a modern British family (carefully screened by a psychotherapist from 400 entrants) inside for 3 months, and see how they manage. The first hour of this four-part epic plays like a rather flat Bob Villa knock-off, as contractors strip out electrical wiring and tinker with gas fittings, an "art director" scurries around the British countryside searching for the "proper" range, and safety inspectors tsk tsk tsk over various health hazards, including the sharp straight razor. At long last, the family--the Bowlers: Joyce and Paul, with older teen daughter Kathryn, the pre-teen twins Hilary and Ruth, and young whippersnapper Paul--moves in and immediately begins experiencing technical difficulties with the range, forcing Joyce into early and copious tears (one of many "scenes" in the series that doesn't tell us much about Victorians, but rather a lot about a modern family suffering from--in real estate lingo--no mod cons). Over the course of the next three hours, viewers watch the Bowler women mostly struggle with corsets, create makeshift sanitary napkins, smuggle shampoo into the house, hire and fire a maid, adjust their dietary habits, and make extensive use of the closet video camera to record their thoughts.Is some of this entertaining? Indeed it is; although, I honestly found the numerous voiceover narration historical asides to be much more interesting than the Bowler family's travails. However, two facets of the program bothered me considerably. First, as the show progressed, family members regularly made pronouncements on the thoughts and feelings of the Victorians--statements supported by neither scholarship nor logic (in fact, the creators seem to have forgotten the fact that this non-academic family is looking at the Victorian experience exclusively through the prism of 20th century life). Second, as the Bowlers explore women's suffrage, the role of servants, and various parlor games, one gets the very strong sense that there are Wizards of BBC behind the curtain pulling the strings, navigating the Bowlers toward Victorian Points of Interest. The punchline comes near the series' conclusion, when Joyce and Kathryn Bowler decide to become actresses, write a song and speech number about the future of women, and (painfully) perform it onstage. No Victorian mother and daughter would have dreamed of such a thing, of course, or, for that matter, have tolerated a camera crew in the bathroom (as Joyce Bowler does while bathing). In the end, The 1900 House produces not so much a Victorian family as that staple product of most reality-based programs: a group of mediocre thespians. Amusing and instructive in bits, the whole shebang is, nevertheless, a strictly optional purchase. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)
The 1900 House
(2000) 2 videocassettes. 220 min. $29.98 ($79.95 w/PPR). PBS Video. Color cover. Closed captioned. ISBN: 0-7806-3185-4. Vol. 15, Issue 5
The 1900 House
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