Review of Lost Treasures of the Maya

Am not really sure what this series is, but it's certainly not a documentary. The amount of actual content on Mayan archaeology could have been covered in just 1 episode, and a short one at that. The rest of the time is wasted with the same footage (including Lin in a helicopter, boffins waving their arms with 'Oohs..' standing in front of a large display panel and people walking through the jungle) repeated ad nausea. The producer also seemed to think the audience needed constant reminding of what LIDAR is (just in case they forget every 2 minutes). Speaking of Lin, am not sure what his role was. Is trekking out to an archaeology site that has been worked on for several seasons really 'exploring'? Not in my books. And how can you 'discover' a pyramid that has already been discovered with LIDAR? Maybe the whole exercise was to advertise for extra funding for Lin's LIDAR research. As others have pointed out, the pathetic attempt to impart suspense in the show was cringe worthy. The scene with altar stone deserves special mention. Lifting a large stone block on a supposedly dodgy timber frame with the light fading. Really? I suspect the short shot of the frame moving was filmed while building it, not when lifting the stone. Also, why the urgency to lift the stone with the light failing? The team has been there all season and the stone wasn't going anywhere so why not wait until the following morning? Maybe they would have been better replacing Lin with a civil engineer who can time manage.

I gave up on the History Channel years ago and now National Geographic seems to have dropped it's standard to suit lobotomized viewers. At least they haven't introduced conspiracy theories and aliens into archaeology like the History Channel, but I'm sure that's not too far away.

I'm honestly puzzled how this pile of tosh gets a rating 6.6.