The Odyssey
- Episode aired Jun 1, 2014
Supplies by sea were vital for the warring parties, so they try to sink each-others ships, notably by German submarines, causing tragic shortages of strategic and ordinary goods, even food a... Read allSupplies by sea were vital for the warring parties, so they try to sink each-others ships, notably by German submarines, causing tragic shortages of strategic and ordinary goods, even food and fertilizer. Neutral countries could trade with both sides, but as the war progressed, G... Read allSupplies by sea were vital for the warring parties, so they try to sink each-others ships, notably by German submarines, causing tragic shortages of strategic and ordinary goods, even food and fertilizer. Neutral countries could trade with both sides, but as the war progressed, Germany resorted to a total blockade of the British island. The story shows an Aericna fami... Read all
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1. Maybe the people making this should read a book or watch some better documentaries to learn about WWI before trying to teach others.
2. There's more historical accuracy & realistic situations in most History Channel specials on how Ancient Alien Bigfoot is hiding Hitler's children with the help of a river monster than there is in this show. I don't know how I can damn the makers of this show more than to sentence them to watch their own claptrap.
As an adult grad student who's spent far too much time learning about the Great War I was able to learn many many exciting new 'alternative facts' based off of the content of this episode. Stowaways dress like a circus clown hobo, understand English, and have the survival sense of a suicidal squirrel. The journey from Holland to Scotland takes TWO YEARS. Whoa! Who knew? Surely it felt like this documentary was covering two years in real time yet somehow only an hour passed. The journey was so long that the Germans had time to suspend unrestricted submarine warfare (september 1915) and resume it (february 1917). The dutch-flagged tramp steamer that the family is riding on left port in 1916 based on the cue cards, apparently encountering the Battle of Jutland (May 1916) along the way from the gunnery noises. At dinner, the captain talks about how he carries potatoes to make lots of money. He brings this up despite also mentioning that carrying 'war supplies' gives German captains an excuse to sink your ship and that war supplies include guns or food. So...either potatoes aren't food? Or when the Germans stopped and inspected the ship, they forgot to check for any of these forbidden supplies, instead choosing to focus on interrogating the American family. The dumb mouthy little imbecile shoots her face off about visiting her grandparents in england, convincing the German they're englishmen and that this is justification to sink their ship. This happens during an extended sequence where the German captain, who speaks only German, repeatedly questions the idiot child, who speaks only English. Hilariously, the examples given by the idiot mother of why they must be Americans and not British is that they say potato and brits say po-TAH-to. Great callback to the illegal cargo, mom! The German announces he's sinking the ship for carrying Brits and leaves. He does not sink the ship. Nobody knows why. Maybe he misplaced his torpedoes? Idiot girl-child who nearly got the ship sunk blames her father. Never mind how implausible that would be for a young girl of that era, she really yells at him for not starting a fistfight with the German submarine Captain to defend her because, I'm not kidding, 'Americans defend the weak'. Yes, really. Apparently American fisticuffs also can trump an armed German submarine that has you dead to rights and an entire crew of cranky German sailors. Let's just say that the idiot girl clearly knows nothing about Seamen.
The 'American,' 'Scottish,' and 'German' accents were atrocious but you'll barely notice because of the confused and poorly written script.
Her non-English-speaking German Stowaway neatly bathed, showered, and dressed like a gentleman (don't ask where/how any of that happened) gets off in Edinburgh with the family. They are met by 'Scottish' soldier-inspectors and claim Joachim is an American, too. Congratulations idiot girl! You've actually just committed multiple acts of espionage that by rights should lead to Joachim's execution as a spy and her father's long imprisonment. Never mind that you're also planning to sneak Joachim into the USA which, in the screwed up time line of the show, has declared war on Germany (April 1917) and will be happy to admit a disguised enemy alien at a time when many schools in America were doing charming activities like burning all of the German language books they could find or lynching Germans who'd previously become US citizens.
One other historical note that really rubbed me the wrong way was in the discussion of naval blockades. Sympathy is plainly meant to be aroused for the poor poor Brits who were down to just six weeks of food for everyone due to the Germans resuming unrestricted submarine warfare (also, the show portrays that as happening in some time loop of 1916 and not 1917). It's immediately followed by a briefer note about how, yes, the Brits did do a naval blockade of Germany (and the central powers?) which caused 'some shortages' of food. The show makes that sound far less severe than being down to six weeks' of food but they do very very briefly mention that these shortages caused a few deaths including children. Historians know that time as 'the Turnip Winter' and how tens of thousands of civilians died and hundreds of thousands were starving under the effect of the British naval blockade. It's noted that Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare is against all the rules of war but it's not mentioned that the UK's blockade is, um, also against the same rules. Eh, that's what you get when winners write history, OK, I can accept that. But the rest...
Oh god, what a mess. What a horrific stinking idiotic brown mess someone just dumped on a desk. I can't even tell what they were thinking. Do not watch this. Never watch this. You will be stupider from having seen it and the target audience will be confused & bored while also learning absolutely nothing even close to accurate about WWI.
- mblackford-2
- Jun 9, 2017
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