Heir Hunters

Post by **dickiesam** » 24 Nov 2011 10:59

Anyone impressed or satisfied with the new TV series of Heir Hunters?

Personally I found it something of a drag. Seemed to have been made for commercial television, with a programme length of around 45/50 minutes so there was a lot of repetition to fill in the space where the ads would have been shown.

And a number of goofs! One in particular surprised me. Fortunately I had recorded the show so was able to make sure I had heard correctly.... When the team had a major breakthrough with the date of birth of the tragic Army wife who had been born in India, the paper on the desk clearly showed 1917 as her birth year. But the team member on-screen said '1973' when speaking to the camera! That should have been picked up immediately.

Overall, very disappointed! I may watch one more time....

DS

Post by **MaryA** » 24 Nov 2011 11:16

I think dragging it out to an hour is far too much, I felt the same in previous series but I believe one series was changed to a half hour slot and was better.

Definitely have noticed things on certificates that have either been ignored or wrongly interpreted, again in previous series also.

The underlying theme of the programme is a good one, but technically it's not very well made.

Post by **Hilary** » 24 Nov 2011 13:25

The old series was on 9.15 to 10.00 so they only had 45 mins to fill. Now they're definitely stretching it a bit. They perhaps should have done 3 cases not 2 in the time. It was good to see that you can fail to find a heir! And find people who don't show on any census!

Post by **simone** » 24 Nov 2011 15:51

when was it on? is it a new series

is it the one on BBC2

I have seen them before

Post by **Blue70** » 24 Nov 2011 18:31

This "new" series being shown each day on BBC2 at 7pm is a kind of "remix" of old stuff. The programme has been "promoted" to an evening spot in the schedules. They've added extra material including updates and the narrator now appears on camera giving background information into the stories.

Apparently the real new series will be broadcast next year. They plan to broadcast both a morning and an evening version of the programme. No idea how they will schedule them. Perhaps show the morning one first and then broadcast the evening one at a later date.

I like the programme but they do make mistakes. They've had two opportunities to investigate the destruction of Irish records and failed on both occasions. They confused the Easter Rising with the Irish Civil War in a first showing and neglected to mention on both showings that some records were thoughtlessly destroyed and it had nothing at all to do with the political situation of the time.

Blue

Post by **simone** » 24 Nov 2011 20:57

Thanks for that Blue

thought I had missed a whole new lot then

Only caught snippets of them and I didn't bother so much because I thought they were ones I had already seen.. thanks again

simone x

ps ... btw DS loving your avatars at the mo... are they you

Post by **dickiesam** » 24 Nov 2011 22:57

simone wrote:ps ... btw DS loving your avatars at the mo... are they you

Ah now that would be telling!

DS

Post by **Barbara B** » 27 Nov 2011 11:49

Have to agree about DS' pictures!
On the subject of Heir Hunters, am I the only person who doesn't really 'warm' to the hunters? The stories themselves are very interesting but I can't work up much enthusiasm for the investigators! Will keep watching as I missed it first time around.
Barbara